Orkney Riddler

  Series Title:- The Orkney Riddle  28/28 Blog Title:- Ice-sheet Britain  This is an attempt to contribute to a better understanding of how the topography of Britain was created by the presence of thick ice-sheets on its surface through multiple cold periods, over many millions of years.  Understanding the geological processes of recent prehistory maps out where land may have existed; land which is now completely absent. This might suggest how people,  plants, trees, and animals may have been able to migrate across to Britain from continental Europe.  The map above  is a topographic rendering of the land surface of Britain.  It demonstrates that the group of islands that make up the British Isles are adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean, at their northwestern approach. Significant features in the topography are the mountains of Scotland, Northern England, Wales,  Cornwall,  and Ireland. These mountains are sliced by valleys, and some locations...

   Series Title:- The Orkney Riddle 4/28 Blog Title:- The Story of the Neolithic Migration to Orkney  There are a large number of reports, large and small, that have been written following excavation of Neolithic sites on Orkney.   These reports include plans, sections, find reports, bone reports, dating reports, and any other data investigations that are relevant to the site.  At the end of the report, the findings are discussed, and sone tentative conclusions are drawn.  In discussing the conclusions that could reasonably be drawn from the data supplied by the work of excavation, many odd features are, very sensibly left in a kind of limbo. Better to conclude nothing than to assert something that no qualifying evidence supports. Across the mass of evidence derived from the excavations of Neolithic Orkney there are enough of these archaeological peculiarities, that if collected together, they form a pattern. The pattern does not prove the concept, but...

  Series Title:- The Orkney Riddle  26/28 Blog Title:- Conclusion The Theory here, begins with people in Early Neolithic times being able to walk from Caithness to Orkney until 3000BC., it continues by suggesting that a land bridge that joined Caithness to Orkney was washed away at that date.  The evidence that I hope I have demonstrated to support the theory is as follows:- The population of Orkney drops after 3000BC.  Barnhouse and many small settlements are abandoned in 3000BC.  The Stones of Stenness and Ring of Brodgar are abandoned, unfinished, probably at that date.  The Westray islands are (mostly) abandoned at 3000BC, and not colonised again until the second half of the 3rd millennium BC.  Skara Brae, and the Ness of Brodgar, both have dated deposits from before 3000BC indicating some kind of occupation, but not till after 3000BC are the revolutionary solid structures with stone lined drains and other necessary amenities designed and construct...

  Series Title:- The Orkney Riddle 3/28 Blog Title:- They Must Have Had Boats ! The persistent belief is that Neolithic people had boats. Sheridan (below) and others, have confidently detailed where the maritime trade routes went between Europe and Britain. So, it must be right, mustn't it? The map of Neolithic trade routes appears in:- "ScARF Summary Neolithic Report June 2012: Kenny Brophy & Alison Sheridan (editors) " However, the only mention of boats in that report is the following:- " Much more direct evidence is needed regarding organic artefacts and structures of all kinds: while we can see that organic resources were skilfully used, we only have a tiny snapshot of the full range of materials and uses. For example, we suspect that curragh-like boats had been used to transport the first farmers and their resources to Scotland, and that logboats had been used for onshore and inland water transport, but so far the earliest dated example of a logboat is Early...