Orkney Riddler

Dating the Ness of Brodgar   The Ness of Brodgar sits on the south eastern tip of the Brodgar isthmus separating the Loch of Harray to the east, and the Loch of Stenness to the west, at the centre of the large natural bowl of hills of the West Mainland of Orkney.  The Ness of Brodgar is a big settlement, It consists of a complex sequence of large, mainly stone, buildings contained within a massive walled enclosure.   Like Barnhouse, the Ness of Brodgar is a predominantly “Grooved Ware Site” The Grooved Ware pottery which was found in large quantities in these places reappears, more or less after 3000BC, at places in England. One of the earliest site to which these people may have travelled, taking their experience in making Grooved Ware pottery with them, is at Nosterfield in Yorkshire (3020-2870 cal BC). Grooved Ware is a style of Neolithic pottery that has spread throughout Britain, and is found in large quantities at Barnhouse. It is a bucket shaped form with a fl...

Dating Skara Brae   Historic Environment Scotland, Statement Of Significance, Skara Brae  “The excavated remains of Skara Brae, as currently presented, consist of a tightly clustered grouping of stone-built structures connected by narrow passageways.  The structures, many of which are interpreted as houses, have internal fittings of stone. There were two main phases of building and occupation in the development of the settlement, with a gap relating to the probable abandonment of the settlement due to inundation by sand.  Individual buildings were, at first, freestanding, with open passageways between them. Some of the passageways were subsequently roofed over, creating the passages visible today.  Skara Brae was occupied at various times – not continuously – from the late fourth Millennium to the mid-third millennium BC (with sporadic activity after that). Recent Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates has indicated that while occupation on the site starte...

  Maeshowe A Wonder of the Neolithic World  Orkney has many grand cairns but the grandest of them all is the Maeshowe Chambered Cairn. This is one of the monuments that make up the Orkney World Heritage Site. It is a great mound encircled within a ditch, and at its’ heart is a rectangular room with tall standing stones at each internal corner. The walls of the room are built up using the thin layered stones that abound on Orkney, and the engineering of the structure is something for which it is justly famous. Maeshowe was investigated by James Farrer, with the assistance of George Petrie. James Farrer (1812 to 1879) was a Conservative Party politician in England who was elected three times as the Member of Parliament for South Durham, between 1847 and 1865. He was a member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and his excavations included partial excavation of Orkney Brochs from 1853; Maeshowe in 1861; and the first excavation of Chedworth Roman Villa, from 1864 to ...

  Skara Brae A Neolithic Village?  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.  Skara Brae Skara Brae is here described by the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historic Monuments Scotland “The west coast of Orkney is mostly very rugged, with high cliffs and pounding Atlantic waves prohibiting coastal settlement, and the only shelter to be found is in the three bays of Birsay, Marwick and Skaill. But the size and shape of these bays has been altered by erosion over the centuries, and the settlement of Skara Brae, when it was founded some 5000 years ago, was certainly not on the shore...

The Anglo-Dutch Neolithic Corridor   Question;   "The Anglo-Dutch Neolithic Corridor"; that's a cool title! What's it about? Answer ; Well, I've been trying to prove that Neolithic people walked from Scotland to Orkney,  but it's easier to demonstrate that they walked from Holland to Norfolk, and i f I can do that, the idea that people must have had boats to get from Caithness to Orkney becomes less credible.  Question ;  At the moment it is believed that Neolithic people came to Britain in boats. So, what is the current understanding of Neolithic movement of people around Britain's shores? Answer ;    In "Sheridan, A. 2010. The Neolithization of Britain andIreland: The ‘Big Picture’. In B. Finlayson & G. Warren(eds), Landscapes in Transition, the authors suggest the routes of several sea lanes from coastal France to the coasts of Britain at this period, based on pottery typologies etc. Question ;  When did Neolithic people arrive in Britain?...