Plateau (2023)

Plateau is an auditory time-lapse history of Scotland’s Cairngorm high plateau. It is composed of four sections corresponding to the fluctuations of cold (Stadial) and warmer (Interstadial) climatic conditions:

(1) The Last Glacial Maximum / (Late) Dimlington Stadial (27,000 to 16,000 BP)
(2) The Late-Glacial Interstadial (c. 14,670 to 12,900 BP)
(3) The Loch Lomond Stadial (12,900 to 11,700 BP)
(4) The early Holocene (11,700 to c.9,000 BP)

Along with an Càrn Gorm / am Monadh Ruadh, Plateau is part of Looking Up, a research project focusing on the post-glacial landscape, archaeology and heritage of the Scottish Uplands, led by Sam Kelley (University College of Dublin, School of Earth Sciences), Graeme Warren (University College Dublin, School of Archaeology) and Alice Doughty (University of Maine, School of Earth and Climate Sciences).

The technique used to determine the timing of deglaciation on the high plateau involved project scientists collecting samples of rock containing quartz grains — a common mineral that is resistant to weathering. The rock samples were crushed, pulverised, sieved and sorted, before being subject to magnetic and mineral separation in order to isolate the quartz grains which contain ‘cosmogenic nuclides’ from the other minerals that make up the rock. In turn, these nuclides provided a direct means of timing their prehistoric exposure to cosmic radiation as the overlying cover of ice finally melted. In total, these samples give us a picture in space and time of the former glaciers in the Cairngorms in the face of warming post-glacial climate.

This process of sample collection and analysis directly informed the composition of Plateau. Stones from the locality were collected and their surface interactions recorded at high frequency sample rates. The resulting waveforms were then subjected to granular analysis, so that ‘single-cycle waveforms’ displaying tonal characteristics could be isolated and extracted. These grains of sound became the foundation of the musical composition.

Looking Up: the future of early prehistoric heritage in Europe’s mountains is funded by the Irish Research Council’s COALESCE programme 2021–2023 (IRC COALESCE/2021/78) and is coordinated by University College Dublin’s School of Archaeology and School of Earth Sciences, with partners in University of Maine, Purdue University (both USA) and Aberdeenshire County Council.