Stones of Stenness, Graham Ritchie's Excavation



Stones of Stenness, 

Graham Ritchie's Excavation 




"The henge monument known as the Stones of Stenness comprises an outer bank, an inner ditch with a single causeway in the N quadrant, a stone circle and a central rectangular box-like structure which contained cremated bones, charcoal and sherds of pottery. 

Cultivation has almost completely removed traces of the bank and ditch, although these could still be seen in the middle of the 19th century. 

At the time of the destruction of the Stone of Odin in 1814, one stone of the circle was felled and another broken up, leaving only two upright throughout the last century.

After the monument was taken into the guardianship of the Office of Works in 1906, the toppled stone was re-erected, another stone was discovered and put up, and a 'dolmen' was built, following the then accepted interpretation of a number of stones in the N of the interior of the circle. 

The capstone of this 'dolmen' was pushed over in October 1972."(Ritchie)

At the Stones of Stenness, Graham Ritchie directed an excavation that found that this circle of stones consisted of twelve in number, of which he explored those stone positions where no standing stone was present. Expressing some reservations about the presence and/or absence of some of the monoliths from the circle of stones, he writes that, “Stone-hole 9 was about 1-6 m by 1-6 m (though the W side was not excavated as it was covered by a balk) and about 0-75 m in depth. The fill was re-deposited till with only a few small slabs and no sign of either stone stump or chocking stones. If there had been an upright, it and Its supporting stones had been very systematically removed. There is likewise no good evidence for stone no. 12, for, although a sharp-sided hollow existed in the surface of the till, it is very slight compared with the other stone-holes and, had the pointed base of an upright been crammed Into the natural at this point, the stone must have been carefully supported by surface stones. This sector of the site has been most severely denuded by ploughing, and while this could not explain the greater destruction of stone-hole no. 12 compared to nos 1 or 9, it might help to explain the absence of any surface chocking stones at this point.”



The observation regarding stone-hole 12, which was hardly more than a stake hole, might lead to the interpretation that the stone circle itself may have remained unfinished. This might mean that the builders only managed to erect ten, or eleven, out of the twelve intended standing stones. It might also mean that the reason that the Stones are unfinished is because people could see that high winter tides were beginning to erode the passage between Caithness and Orkney. Seeing this, the people abandoned their annual gatherings at Brodgar.

Further, discussing the effort required in cutting the ditch of the circle Ritchie observes that, “The visible architectural feat of the raising and positioning of the monoliths is fully matched by the excavation of the rock-cut ditch. The physical effort required for the entire operation of the construction of the Henge has been evaluated as being some 50,000 man-hours. The original depth and width of the Stenness ditch must have given the stones an impression of greater height and aloofness. The ditch of the adjacent Henge monument of the Ring of Brodgar, as revealed by excavation, is an even greater engineering feat; it measures no less than 10 m in width and 3-4 m in depth from the outside surface, and was, like that at Stenness, cut into solid bed-rock. Renfrew, using data on traditional quarrying methods in Orkney, suggests that the effort required (to dig the Brodgar ditch) might indicate a figure of 80,000 man-hours. Clearly such estimates can give no more than a tantalising impression of the complex organisation of Neolithic society in Orkney”.(Ritchie) 

If all that the Neolithic people had done was dig ditches then we might decide that there were just about enough habitations in Orkney to supply the workforce for these projects. In fact though, these were almost the least of the Neolithic people's achievements. 

*


This is one of a loosely attached group of blogs called the "Orkney Riddle".

The key blog to the group is called the "Neolithic Immigrants to Britain" 

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 

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