Skara Brae, RCAHMS

 

Skara Brae 

RCAHMS 

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 as it is now but set well back from the sea. Environmental evidence even suggests that a freshwater loch, like the Loch of Skaill behind Skaill House, may have separated the site from the sea and its immediate sandy shore. The name Skara Brae was originally coined to describe the huge sand-dune that covered the site until storm damage in 1850 revealed the presence of stone structures and midden deposits, and, although erosion has destroyed the northern margin of the settlement, it seems likely that the impression given by the visible surviving remains is essentially accurate: this was, architecturally and socially, a tightly knit housing complex for a small community of perhaps fifty people.

Radiocarbon dating suggests that Skara Brae was inhabited for around 600 years, during which time there was rebuilding and modification of the houses and interconnecting passages, and inevitably most of the structures visible today represent the final layout of the village.

Its focus consists of six square or rectangular houses linked by narrow irregular passages, very much an inward-looking complex, with a single isolated building of somewhat different design on the west side of the village.

The evidence of burnt stones and chips of chert found in this building (no. 8) suggests that it was not an ordinary house but a workshop, probably where chert tools were manufactured (chert was used as a substitute for flint, which in Orkney occurs only as relatively small nodules washed up on the shore).

The main group of domestic houses has two remarkable characteristics: embedded in midden, it is virtually subterranean, and the internal design of its housing units has a standard uniformity. Both aspects were deliberate and, assuming that there was no prehistoric equivalent of a modern building contractor at work here, they must indicate a very strong sense of corporate identity amongst the families of this community.

Each house consists of a single room with thick drystone walls surviving in some places as high as 3m. There is a marked contrast between the cramped conditions of the passageways and the equally low and narrow doorways and the spacious and comfortable house-interiors, again a contrast that must have been deliberate and which mirrors the design of contemporary tombs with their low tunnel-like passages and soaring chambers.

It is as if the ideology of their builders demanded that getting there should be humiliatingly difficult but living there, whether in life or death, should be glorious. Small cells were built into the walls, mostly for storage but some furnished with drains as lavatories. A large square earth with stone kerbs occupies the centre of each house, and the use of stone slabs to build furniture has left us with an unusually precise picture of how the rest of the room was arranged (best seen in nos 1 and 7).

Slab built beds flanked either side of the hearth, and a stone dresser was built against the wall opposite the door. Wall cupboards and stone boxes sunk into the floor provide extra storage space. To these bare essentials the visitor’s eye should add heather and furs to the beds, skin canopies spanning the bed-posts, decorative pottery jars to the dresser, flame to the hearth, dried meats and fish hanging from the rafters...

Traces of earlier houses suggest a greater variety of plan and perhaps less sophisticated interior design: no. 9 is the most complete, and it has a central hearth and bed-alcoves built into the thickness of the walls.

Without demolishing the later houses, it is impossible to reconstruct the appearance of the original village, but the basic economy and material culture of the community seems to have changed little over the centuries, suggesting that the overall form of the settlement probably also remained the same.” (RCAHMS)

*

Index

The rich history of archaeology on Orkney provides source material for the following observations.

"Neolithic Migrants to Orkney" The story of the First, Founding Immigrants to Orkney 

"A Bizarre Idea" What's the Story, then?

"Walkable land in the North Sea" describes evidence that walkable land was present between Norfolk and Holland at a time when prehistoric people were occupying northern Europe. 

"Archaeology in the North Sea" looks at the elusive evidence that people could have walked from Caithness to South Ronaldsay. 

"3000BC" gives detailed evidence of tsunami events on the Norwegian Coast.

 "A Brief Guide to the Last Glaciation" How did the North Sea develop?

"Mainland Settlements" discusses and dates the early settlements across mainland Orkney.

"Barnhouse" describes this "Neolithic Village" a substantial group of Neolithic structures on the shore of Harray Loch. 

"Barnhouse Sweat Lodge" describes Structure 8, the Sweat Lodge at Barnhouse.

"Modern Sweat Lodge Practices" describes present day Sweat Lodge ceremonies.

"The Stones of Stenness" describes anomalies in the settings of the stones that formed the stone circle.

"The Ring of Brodgar" discusses just how many stones are there, or are not there, at the Ring of Brodgar. 

 "A Custom Among the Lower Class of People" , about 18th century Orkney people and the Stones at Brodgar. 

"Maeshowe, a Wonder of the Neolithic World" is the personal account of the excavation of the Maeshowe Cairn by the man who excavated it. I include it because it is so personal, not because it adds anything to our understanding. 

"Cairns of Orkney" is the commentary of several antiquarian archaeologists writing in previous centuries as they excavated Cairns in England, Scotland, and Orkney. Although these cairns may not have been excavated to a high standard, the commentary provided in these reports is, in my view, very personal, and highly approachable. 

"Cairns and the People in them" examines the bones of the people who were laid in cairns, and tells their stories.

"The Westrays" describes the Knap of Howar settlement, and the desolation of the islands that were found by the people of the Links of Noltland when they settled there at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. 

"Skara Brae, RCAHMS" is the official description of the Neolithic "Village"

"Skara Brae, Excavation", is an account of the excavation of Hut 7 in 1927. This is an interesting personal account of the Gordon Childe's Excavation by J Wilson Paterson.

"Dating Skara Brae" gives detailed dating evidence for Skara Brae 

"The Ness of Brodgar Excavation" and account of the excavation , before 2020, by Nick Card. 

"Dating the Ness of Brodgar" gives Dating evidence for the Ness of Brodgar 

"The Ferriby Boats" The first seafaring vessels? 

"The Orkney Vole" discusses the evidence that the Orkney Vole migrated from Europe to Orkney without setting foot on mainland Britain. 

Bere Barley, a Neolithic grain derivations of Bere Barley. 

"Concluding" , some simple remarks in conclusion.

"Finally" closing remarks.

Sources

All views and opinions expressed are my own, but it remains a work-in-progress for which positive criticism and comment is welcomed.

Jeffery Nicholls 

South Ronaldsay 

Orkney 

Jiffynorm@yahoo.co.uk