The Palimpsest Landscape of Scalpsie Bay
A further important theme is the understandings of how landscape characteristics and ways of life within that landscape may echo as a legacy in later periods. Was, for example, the specific character of Improvement on Bute conditioned by the nature of the landscape bequeathed by earlier generations or were notions of landscape entirely reinvented? Within this theme the inter-relationship of settlement sites with each other and with local landscape becomes interesting. Did, for example, the siting of duns predominate on the west coast as a result of a restriction of appropriate landscapes on which to build, or was the location determined by pre-existing land divisions? Similarly, was the location of many of the Improvement farmsteads between the 20m and 30m contour line a choice determined by local landscape wisdom, or a result of scientific knowledge? Underpinning many of these potential research routes is a final theme, the question of definitions of landscape, and how such definitions relate to in an island environment such as Bute. Clearly, in one sense the landscape of Bute is well defined by a coastline. Yet, closer investigation reveals a myriad of alternative understandings of what landscape Bute sat in: from the political landscape of Buteshire to the tourist landscape of the Clyde Riviera. Further exploration of how such understandings were arrived at, were reinforced and were manifest offer much potential for further research. 33