Rievaulx Abbey, the Cistercian taskscape and environmental change

Rievaulx Abbey, the Cistercian taskscape and environmental changeThe work contributes to the growing body of revisionist research into the Cistercian order by extending the concept of ‘taskscape,’ originally devised by anthropologist Tim Ingold to describe an array of related, interlocking activities. Extending taskscape to Cistercian contexts offers an interpretative framing with potential for nuance, illustrated by the issue of documented Cistercian ‘transformation’ of landscape. The interdisciplinary research reported briefly here used taskscape to analyse documentary and archaeological data alongside a catchment hydrological model. The research found that the first Cistercian monastery in Northern Britain, Rievaulx Abbey, developed in a complex physical and socio-cultural context on which the monastery’s impact was likely to have been correspondingly complex

Scoping a UK Heritage Science Infrastructure. Priorities, Risks and Values. A report to the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

In 2021, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) awarded funding for five infrastructure policy and engagement fellowships, as part of its ongoing process of portfolio scoping and prioritisation. Two Fellowships were awarded to undertake research and engagement in the creative industries, and three Fellows were funded by AHRC to undertake research and engagement in heritage science and conservation research. A report by the three Fellows in heritage science and conservation research is now available. The Fellows’ report refers throughout to a bid by AHRC to the UKRI Infrastructure Fund. The AHRC bid is to establish a networked, distributed infrastructure for UK heritage science, RICHeS. Securing public investment on the scale envisaged for RICHeS must go through a rigorous process to comply with rules for managing public money. At the time the Fellows’ report was written (2021) and in mid-2022, the AHRC bid was still undergoing development and assessment. The Fellows’ report should therefore be viewed as supporting wider conversations around heritage science and should not be read as defining the operational or funding decisions for RICHeS, which remain a matter for AHRC