Barnhouse "Dormitory?"

 Barnhouse "Dormitory?"


One of the most interesting structures at Barnhouse is Structure 2, which has some affinity with buildings that are found at the Ness of Brodgar. 

The design layout excavated suggests that this is a ridged roof structure with a box section of timbers supporting roof timbers at each end with another cross member in the middle position. This divides the interior into two parts ,each containing a hearth. The floor of the hut is otherwise divided by several orthostats, long flat stones laid on age ,seeming to create divisions inside the building.

I have been known to be wrong, but my impression is that this layout may have been used as a Dormitory, a hut where half a dozen people would sleep, all together. The structure, being a bit more solid than the huts elsewhere might have been used for longer periods than the lighter weight tents. It seems possible that some people may have inhabited the Neolithic "Village" earlier in spring, and later into autumn than those who lived in the tents.

The design of structure 2 is very similar to the structure 12, at the Ness of Brodgar, which dates to a significant time later in the early 3rd millennium BC. 

Jeffery Nicholls 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Skara Brae, Childe’s Excavation

Image
  The Orkney Riddle 19/27 Skara Brae Childe’s Excavation  Skara Brae, one of the most perfectly preserved Stone Age villages in Europe, which was covered for hundreds of years by a sand dune on the shore of the Bay of Skaill, Mainland, Orkney Islands, Scotland. Exposed by a great storm in 1850, four buildings were excavated during the 1860s by William Watt. After another storm in 1926, further excavations were undertaken by the Ancient Monuments branch of the British Ministry of Works. During the 1970s radiocarbon dating established that the settlement was inhabited from about 3200 to 2200 bce. In 1999, as part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney, Skara Brae was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, along with Maes Howe, a large chambered tomb, as well as two ceremonial stone circles, the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar. (Britannica) Structure 7 (above) is the most complete building found at Skara Brae. It’s condition is preserved, and it is barred from public acc...
Read more

Walkable Land in the North Sea

Image
Series Title:- The Orkney Riddle 6/27 Blog Title:- Walkable Land in the North Sea There is an area of shallow sea that links Holland with East Anglia. It is likely that this passage would have provided walkable land between England and Holland until a time when Neolithic people were exploring Northern Europe.  The bathymetry chart above indicates this broad area of shallow water joining Lincolnshire, and Norfolk, in England to Holland. Elsewhere, to the south of this region deep water gullies would have prevented any migration by animals, people, or plants. The Norfolk Banks (above) are a series of ridges on the floor of the North Sea, beside the Norfolk coast. Detailed chart, above shows bathymetry of ridges and troughs of the Norfolk   The location of this section of the Norfolk Banks, above, is indicated on the plan above it. The main features of the Norfolk Banks that can be seen in the plan and section are as follows  1- the high ridges of these banks are parallel ...
Read more

A Bizarre Idea

Image
  Series Title:- The Orkney Riddle 1/27 Blog Title:- The Bizarre Idea This is a view of the Pentland Firth from a settlement called Skarfskerry, on the North Coast of Caithness in Scotland. The low headland across the water is a neighbouring piece of Scottish coast and beyond that, at the horizon left of view, and almost invisible, is Orkney, an archipelago that sits beyond the northernmost coast of the Scotland. It is part of the Northern Isles group, and consists of more than 70, mostly low-lying, islands and islets of which only about 20 are inhabited. Orkney is renowned as the home of a Unesco World Heritage site. The islands were occupied over 5000 years ago by Neolithic people who created a group of settlements and monuments of a complexity and quality not surviving anywhere else in Britain at such an early date. The Pentland Firth here that separates Scotland from Orkney is a strait of water about 8 miles wide, and is famously dangerous. The average speed of water runni...
Read more