The Historic Environment and Biodiversity at TAG 2025
Posted on Friday 16 January 2026
TAG 2025 York
From the 15th to 17th December 2025, the University of York hosted the Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference 2025 (TAG 2025), and delegates from around the country and world were able to gather in the historic city. The conference theme this year was ‘Theory in Action’, and of particular relevance to LCAB’s interdisciplinary work was the session ‘To inform and inspire: the (re)use of archaeology and heritage in support of nature based responses to climate change and biodiversity loss.’ This session was organised by Claire Boardman of the University of York and Callum Reilly of The National Trust. It invited contributions on how applied archaeology and heritage is being used to address modern environmental challenges.
Contribution by an LCAB Member
Andrew presented the theory behind a current project within his thesis, under the title ‘The Never-Wildwood: Humans and Beavers in Britain’s Woodlands in the Mesolithic and the Present’. The context of this presentation was Britain in the Mesolithic, about 8,000 years ago. At that time, several millennia after the last glaciation, Britain was newly an island and was a temperate environment. There is a long-standing debate about the structure of British woodland in that period, including over how much of Britain’s land was covered by a high woodland canopy.
Andrew’s contribution outlined the need to investigate the impacts that ecosystem engineering by humans and beavers had on that Mesolithic woodland structure. Both inhabited Britain’s Mesolithic woodlands, and would have frequently interacted, and both are also primary instigators of tree felling and woodland clearance. Assessing their impact further would expand knowledge of Mesolithic woodlands for archaeological and palaeoecological accounts. Andrew will be continuing to work on the quantitative and spatial aspects of the project, and using these to estimate past biodiversity.
Research Aligned with our Interests
A range of highly interesting research was presented in the session, with twelve researchers presenting in total. Topics ranged from the spirit of place in urban rewilding projects (Claire Boardman, University of York) and phenomenological perceptions of climate along Hadrian’s Wall (Stelios Lekakis, Newcastle University), to combined natural and cultural landscape management (Callum Reilly, National Trust), to managing peatlands in Dorset (Sigrid Osborne, Bournemouth University) and Scotland (Phil Gould, University of Glasgow), and also looked out to sea with heritage environments in marine net gain initiatives (Katerina Velentza, University of Hull), and to using traditional knowledge in water management in Kazakhstan (Akniyet Seidigali, Silk Road International University of Tourism and Cultural Heritage, Samarkand, Uzbekistan).
Robert Swinbank (Durham University) overviewed the challenges of incorporating cultural heritage management into rewilding practice, highlighting the barriers to understanding and communication between ecological and heritage professionals and opportunities for greater engagement. Kirsty Lilley (Trimontium Trust) introduced the Landscape Change and Conservation with MapReader project and digital tool, which automates the extraction of land use data from historical Ordnance Survey maps and thus enables access to extensive valuable data about past environments. Edward Stewart (Archaeology Scotland) discussed how the framing of narratives about the ‘wildness’ of the Scottish Highlands can misrepresent past and present communities who live in the Highlands, and how we could improve representation. And Nick Overton (Oxford Archaeology) outlined several projects, including Better Biodiversity Net Gain, highlighting the inconsistent and often limited representation of the historic environment in Biodiversity Net Gain initiatives and proposing how the historic environment could be valuably incorporated.
It was excellent to bring together this range of researchers from across Britain and the world working between the historic environment and the natural environment, and to share the fascinating projects underway.