Orkney Riddler

 Camp Barnhouse     The Barnhouse neolithic "village" contains numerous features  and over half of these are simple circular groups of stones around hearth-like structures.  These are very shallow features, and as there is no abundance of  surface stones, it is likely that the structure they represent was either a tent, a teepee, a bivouac, a bender, or some other light structure easily erected for temporary occupation. Colin Richards, in his reporting of the excavation says that these structures were patched, rebuilt and repaired on a frequent basis during their existence.  Doubtless, rebuilding would have been necessary after any high wind event. No structure with a large surface area, but with little weight,and poor attachment to ground survives an Orkney winter. Hardy these people may have been, but tents like these would have been blown away in any orcadian winter. This means that the inhabitants of the Neolithic Barnhouse, who were present on the...

  Barnhouse and Ritual When I first visited Barnhouse many  years ago I looked at the largest structure, Structure 8, (which i now interpret to be a sweat lodge) and had to interpret the site from the structures that Historic Scotland had created. I remember thinking as I walked around the building, looking at the entrance that this was a place where people had to walk across a hearth in order to get into the place and then that there was another hearth in the middle of the building as well. When I more recently read the report on the excavation and interpreted the plans I discovered that Historic Scotland had, intentionally or not, done a fine job of Disney-fying neolithic Orkney, as if it really needed it! The plans from the excavation clearly show that the entrance to Structure 8 is a small lobby, with a hearth for heating stones on ne side, two entry points from outside, and a passage to the interior of the structure. Nobody had to walk over hot coals to get inside. They w...

Crossing from the Stones of Stenness to the Ring of Brodgar  I remember reading about Stenness Loch and how surveying the floor of the loch suggested that the area had been a mixed terrain, including marshy ground and possibly some neolithic features. The discussion followed with the observation that as sea levels rose the sea water from the North Sea flooded through the Bridge of Waithes. In this way there is a separation between the two lochs where the Harray Loch is fresh water, and the Stenness Loch is salty. As there is a gap, a passage of water,  separating the Brodgar peninsula from the stones of Stenness and Maeshowe location, is it possible that early in the Neolithic period people came to this place and built a dam to block rivers flowing between Harray and Stenness to make it easier to get to the peninsula from Barnhouse, incidentally creating the fresh water lake?

  Orkney Riddle  This is the southern tip of South Ronaldsay,  close to the Tomb of the Eagles.  The island offshore is called the Pentland Skerries. It is attached to a shoal of underwater shallow seabed, called the Sandy Riddle. Hence, the Orkney Riddle.  Here is the index to 27 blogs that make up the Orkney Riddle, research that touches the surface to suggest what really happened in the land of the Simmerdim. 1, A Bizarre Idea  Neolithic people walking to Orkney! That's the bizarre idea.  2,  The Orkney Vole  It's a bit of a mystery how the vole delivered itself from Belgium to Orkney without passing through England and Scotland.  3,  They Must Have Had Boats  That's what I have told. Sorry, I don't believe it. 4,  Neolithic Migration to Orkney   This is very brief summary of what may have happened in Orkney between 3500BC, and 2500BC. 5,  Pentland Firth  Crossing the Pentland Firth is exciting on a moder...

  More from "Report on the Excavations at Skara Brae. The Excavations in 1927", BY J. Wilson Paterson. Quoted from the report  "A description and list of the finds from the excavation is given below. Here it will be convenient to give some account of the disposition of objects on the floor of Hut 7 since no such observations have previously been published. In this way some idea may be formed of conditions of life in the hut at the moment of its final abandonment. As already stated, the floor-level was covered over with a dark coloured slime, through which projected, beside the slabs of the fixtures ("pens" and the hearth), a number of broken beam-slabs in complete disorder, and therefore not in siiu. It was, in general, under the levelof these that finds were made. I believe them to have fallen from above. In their fall they would have smashed slate paving-slabs had such been present. Broken pieces of thin slates were, in fact, found all about the floor mixed u...

Vere Gordon Childe   The most famous monument on Orkney is Skara Brae, dubbed the “Neolithic Village” and excavated by, among others, the equally famous V. Gordon Childe. His excavation was undertaken between 1927 and 1930. He wasn’t the first to excavate the site, but he did become the most famous and influential archaeologist to be linked to Orkney at the time, and the account of his work gives an interesting impression of the decline of the settlement. Vere Gordon Childe (1892-1957), was born in North Sydney, Australia, the son of London-born parents Rev. Stephen Henry Childe, and his second wife Harriet Eliza, née Gordon. He was to become an archaeologist and political theorist. Known as Gordon, he was educated at Sydney Church of England Grammar School, and the University of Sydney. He graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in 1914 with first-class honours in Latin, Greek and philosophy. He then won a scholarship to Oxford, in Great Britain, where he studied classical archaeology ...