Human ecology and the early history of St Kilda,Scotland |
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| Institution: | 1. Key Laboratory of Mechanics on Western Disaster and Environment, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China;2. Department of Mechanics, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China;3. School of Electronical and Mechanical Engineering, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China;1. Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, 576104, India;2. Department of Anatomy, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, 576104, India;3. Department of Physiology, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, 576104, India;1. School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Environment and Natural Resources 2, 1064 East Lowell Street, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA;2. School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Environment and Natural Resources 2, 1064 East Lowell Street, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA |
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| Abstract: | It is 300 years since Martin Martin published hisVoyage to St Kilda, one of the most informative accounts ever published of a seventeenth-century community. Historical treatments of St Kilda have often dramatized its isolation, distinctiveness and «marginality» but Martin's writings suggest that the lifeways of the St Kildans were not very different from those of contemporary Hebrideans. The economy described by Martin was subject to a rigorous regime of communal self-management. This article argues that in late medieval climatic conditions, St Kilda's particular combination of resources—sheltered arable land, seals and sea-bird colonies, including a huge gannetry—would have made the archipelago a valued component of the MacLeod chiefdom and a good target for the annual predatory visit of the sub-chief and his retinue. St Kilda's history should be seen not in isolation, but in a context of regional interdependence, and the archipelago's «marginality» is best understood in a long-term historical perspective. |
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