Fliss TTT Bursary

Fliss McDowall: My Trevelyan Trust Travel Bursary

I am a PhD student in the archaeology department and my research involves visiting museums and heritage sites across the United Kingdom to document and assess how they present their prehistoric collections. Prehistory (human history before the written record) accounts for the majority of our past yet it is often neglected in museums and perceived as irrelevant and boring by the public. My research aims to overcome these issues by reviewing how this period is currently perceived and portrayed in museums and subsequently identifying effective methods and styles of display for engaging the public with their deep past. Thus for part of this research it was essential that I travel to Orkney, an area which has an exceptionally rich prehistoric past and receives a high volume of tourists interested in viewing the sites each year. Unfortunately, due to the cost of travel to such a small island it was not something I thought I would feasibly be able to incorporate in my research. However, I applied for a Trevelyan Travel Trust Bursary and was successful in my application which enabled me to visit Orkney in July 2017.

The funds that Trevelyan provided me enabled me to visit the islands’ many museums and heritage sites which was invaluable for my research that had previously been restricted to England. I was able to visit Kirkwall Museum, Stromness Museum, Skara Brae Visitor Centre, Maeshowe Visitor Centre, the Tomb of the Eagles Visitor Centre and many interpretation panels within the landscape. All of these sites provided me with very different experiences of prehistory and further developed my knowledge of prehistoric display trends. Furthermore, this trip also provided me with the opportunity to both document the styles of presentation and interpretation at the sites as well as the chance to meet the curators and discuss the displays and prehistory collections in further detail. The displays and interpretation provided at the sites provided an enlightening comparison with the similarly rich prehistoric landscape of Wiltshire that I have previously studied. This trip therefore highlighted differences in how visitors interact with prehistory in prehistoric landscapes and how this material is presented in comparison to other areas in the UK. Thus, this research trip has formed a significant component of my understanding of how prehistory displays work in various settings and the interplay between collections, displays and visitors, a vital part of my PhD.



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