A university academic is to reconstruct the landscape surrounding the Battle of Bannockburn to shed light on the famous 1314 clash.
The battle went down in history when Robert the Bruce defeated the English army in Stirlingshire.
Richard Tipping from Stirling University will study the topography and undertake a complete environmental reconstruction to help historians better understand how the clash played out almost 700 years ago.
Dr Tipping said: "Improvements in radio carbon dating mean that we will be able to date ground conditions to within a decade.
"We will be using scientific techniques to solve a historical problem. All sorts of environmental issues affected the battle - for example, how many trees were there, where were they positioned and was Robert the Bruce hiding among them? The terrain was crucial to Edward's cavalry - was it peaty, a bog or well cultivated and drained farming land?"
Dr Tipping said he will focus on the Carse of Stirling because that is where the English army was positioned and it is assumed that the decisive second day of the battle was fought there.
Edward II's troops are likely to have camped somewhere on the Carse to the south east of Stirling Castle, a level plain imagined to be peat bog and sticky clay. This camp is almost always assumed to have been ill-suited to English cavalry.
Dr Tipping said: "The terrain and ground conditions of the battle remain unknown. We judge Edward II's tactics on the battlefield by what we know of the topography now, but we may have done him a disservice. By recreating the landscape, we will assist historians to determine the ground conditions which he faced."
The study will begin on January 7 with £120,000 funding from the Leverhulme Trust.
Dr Tipping is expected to complete his research by the end of August when it will be used by the National Trust for Scotland to recreate the battlefield in a new visitor centre to be opened for the 700th anniversary celebration of the Battle of Bannockburn.
