Dave McBain
Diversify to survive, or self-betterment? Can scant historic records and archaeological evidence be used to trace population and employment changes in Lochinver 1774-1891?
Supervised by:
- Dr Elizabeth Ritchie, UHI Centre for History
- Dr James Moore, UHI Archaeology Institute.
Dave studied Computing and data processing at Napier way back in the mists of time before returning to studies with UHI in 2016 and studying Archaeology and History part time over the past 7 years. This research continues his passion for those subjects with a local emphasis on change in a small community.
This MRes study will use his home location to conduct a socio-economic analysis on the changing opportunities for employment in Lochinver, during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Using social change as an economic driver the research aims to uncover the opportunities available in remote communities and how these may have been driven by external factors. This will include examining the physical and archaeological records as well as the historic record – partially because much of the historic records either does not exist or has thus far proven elusive, but more crucially the overlap between the two can lead to uncovering physical evidence of the written record and being able to visualize history.
Along with his wife, Dave runs a B&B in Lochinver as well as chairing the local history society – Historic Assynt. Through this he has been able to combine interests in hillwalking, photography and local history and can happily report being the source of numerous records on HER and Canmore. Dave has volunteered on numerous digs including burial kists, crannogs, duns and a broch. He is also the author of Fishing in Assynt: An oral history.