The UHI Archaeology Institute publication Landscapes Revealed: geophysical survey in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Area, 2002-2011 was named Current Archaeology’s book of the year at an awards ceremony in London on Saturday (February 25).

Professor Jane Downes, the director of the institute and one of the authors, was attending the Current Archaeology Live! conference and accepted the prestigious award on behalf of her co-authors, Amanda Brend, Nick Card, Mark Edmonds and James Moore.

The second volume in the UHI Archaeology Institute’s research series, the book documents a ten-year project that surveyed a 285-hectare area between Skara Brae and Maeshowe.

The project ran from 2002 until 2011 and revealed a wealth of new sites, helped chart the changing character of the landscape and shed new light on the known monuments and their place in the historic and more recent past.

Nominations for the award were based on books reviewed in Current Archaeology magazine in 2021/2022 and the winner decided by an online vote. Landscapes Revealed was one of eight books in the running.

It was a good day for Orkney archaeology with two of the four Current Archaeology awards going to projects in the county.

The award for Research Project of the Year went to the University of Huddersfield/EASE Archaeology’s genetic analysis of human remains at the Links of Noltland in Westray. Ancient Orkney DNA in the News

Their project, Prehistoric pioneers: how female migrants changed the face of Bronze Age Orkney, revealed evidence of a female-dominated migration into the islands during the Bronze Age.