The terrain around Stirling at the battle of Bannockburn 1314: combined scientific and documentary approaches to reconstruction. I. The ‘low road’

ABSTRACT Bannockburn is of immense importance in the Medieval histories of England and Scotland. Where the battle took place is still unknown, as is the terrain, what the place looked like. The two parts of this paper examine these problems by generating new data on environmental and land use reconstruction. The physical appearance of the landscape was reconstructed from radiocarbon (14C) dating of landforms and palaeo-environmental analyses of sediment stratigraphies; new documentary evidence, specifically on the local environment and land use provided much detail. In Part I, we analyse the early 14th century landscape of the ‘low road’ to Stirling, across the coastal plain. This has been mis-interpreted by historians less concerned than us with detail. We have re-defined the complexity of the coastal plain, emphasized its dynamism, identified natural hazards that may have influenced decision-making by the combatants, including a new understanding of the Bannock Burn itself, debated with new evidence but not resolved key aspects of the land cover, and suggested a setting for the battle itself.