Whiggish narratives of ‘Improvement’ and emphasis on the inefficiencies and ingrained conservatism of pre-Improvement agricultural practices have skewed discussion of cultivation and agricultural techniques in medieval Scotland. Expansion and contraction of the area under cultivation has long been explained in Malthusian terms, with the check on growth being delivered by recurrent epidemics from the 14th century onwards. But other factors affected agricultural viability or created opportunity, and we can see greater responsiveness to the challenges of climate and weather than our traditional narratives would suggest.
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The Rhind Lectures 2024, “Two ‘little’ ice ages and an anomaly: climate, environment and cultural change in medieval and early modern Scotland” are presented by Professor Richard Oram MA(Hons) PhD FSA FRSA FSAScot. Livestreamed and recorded by the Society at Augustine United Church. Sponsored by GUARD Archaeology Ltd. 
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The Rhind Lectures 2024: 
Our current climate emergency and its ecological and wider environmental consequences are concepts with which we are all familiar, but the impacts of historic climate change on the environment of Scotland and its people are little recognised or understood. Between the dawn of the ‘Late Antique little ice age’ in the 6th century CE to the waning of the ‘little ice age’ in the 19th century CE, climate change and how Scotland’s people responded to it was one of the most dynamic agents affecting environmental conditions and resources and a key stimulus of social and cultural transformation. From epidemic and epizootic disease to energy crises and transitions, ‘Golden Ages’ to ‘Ill Years’, this was an era where dearth, abundance, sustainability and resilience shaped Scotland.
The Lecturer: 
Richard Oram graduated MA (Hons) in Mediæval History with Archaeology and PhD in Mediæval History from the University of St Andrews. Appointed Lecturer in Scottish and Environmental History at the University of Stirling in 2002, Director of the Centre for Environmental History from 2005 and in 2007 becoming the first Chair in Environmental History in the UK, he has published extensively on the environmental histories of Scotland and the wider North Atlantic region, specialising in historic climate change, energy transitions and the impacts of epidemic disease.