Topic description and stories

Emerald Swamp, Tasmania

Study uncovers earliest evidence of humans using fire to shape the landscape of Tasmania

15 Nov 2024

Some of the first human beings to arrive in Tasmania, over 41,000 years ago, used fire to shape and manage the landscape, about 2,000 years earlier...

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A wild horse on Wicken Fen, UK

Cambridge researchers to tackle major threats to 'UK’s vegetable garden'

15 Feb 2022

Cambridge researchers will tackle environmental threats that could affect a third of England’s home-grown vegetables and more than a quarter of the...

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Cattle grazing in the River Ouse water meadows south of Ely

Casting light on the dark ages: Anglo-Saxon fenland is re-imagined

21 Jul 2017

What was life in the fens like in the period known as the dark ages? Archaeologist Susan Oosthuizen revisits the history of an iconic wetland in the...

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Words for mud and mountain, wind and wetland: answers on a postcard, please

01 Apr 2015

‘Dumberdash’ is an old Cheshire term for a short but violent storm. A ‘lumpenhole’ is a deep trench for fluid farmyard waste. The man who remembers...

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Charles Towne, Hilly Landscape, Oil on canvas, 38.7cm x 51.1cm (detail)

Views of the landscape

17 May 2013

In a talk on Monday (20 May 2013) Dr Simon Nightingale will explore how painterly interpretations of the countryside were embedded into the...

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Mudflat and marsh at Abbots Hall, Essex

After the flood: harnessing the power of mud

31 Jan 2013

On the 60th Anniversary of the ‘big flood’ that devastated the coastline of eastern England, new research shows that integrating ‘natural’ sea...

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Separation barrier in Jerusalem

Capturing urban conflict: beyond the newsreel

19 Oct 2011

A new exhibition unveils the work of a unique study into some of the most bitterly divided cities in the world, such as Jerusalem and Belfast...

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