Orkney Riddle Index

 

Orkney Riddle 

Index

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 the blogs that make up the Orkney Riddle, research that touches the surface to suggest what really happened in the land of the Simmerdim.

 A Bizarre Idea 

Neolithic people walking to Orkney! That's the bizarre idea. 

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. 

 They Must Have Had Boats 

That's what I have been told. Sorry, I don't believe it.

Neolithic Migration to Orkney 

This is a very brief summary of what may have happened in Orkney between 3500BC, and 2500BC.

Pentland Firth 

Crossing the Pentland Firth is exciting on a modern boat. It would be treacherous in any small boat without a motor.

Walkable land in the North Sea 

This is about shallow seas in the Southern North Sea that would have been walkable land in around 3000BC. ( I think!)

The Swifterbant Culture 

This is about the herdsmen and women of Northern Europe that expanded their territories in Southern Europe, arriving in Belgium in the 5th and 4th millennia BC.

Archaeology in the North Sea 

The present Dogger Bank is the remnant of a ridge of land that extended from Doggerland in the south to a point between Shetland and Norway. This ridge divided the North Sea into the two coastal waters, offshore England/Scotland, and offshore Norway. 

Mainland Settlements 

Lots of small settlements dotted around the islands,  not solid, like Skara Brae, but scrapes in the ground with ashes and seeds, and paved areas.

Barnhouse 

An early encampment with bivouacs and a toilet.

Barnhouse Sweat Lodge 

A sheltered timber structure with a pyramid roof.

 Modern Sweat Lodge Practice 

Interesting to see what the Neolithic Orcadians may have believed  as it is understood today.

Stones of Stenness 

An unfinished stone circle?

The Ring of Brodgar 

Another unfinished stone circle?

 Maeshowe Wonder of the Neolithic World 

A fascinating account of the excavation of the Maeshowe cairn.  Those were the days!

Cairns of Orkney 

More fascinating accounts of the excavation of cairns by early archaeologists.

Dem Bones,  Dem Bones 

The bones in the cairns tell the stories of the Neolithic Orcadians.

Skara Brae,  RCAHMS

The proper description of the Skara Brae Neolithic Village.

Skara Brae Neolithic Village 

Patersons description of Childe's excavation,  in all its' gorey detail 

Dating Skara Brae 

Carbon Dating of the occupation of Skara Brae.

 The Ness of Brodgar Excavation 

Director of Ness of Brodgar excavation, Nick Card's description of the Ness of Brodgar 

Bere Barley Neolithic Grain

About Bere Barley, thought to have been cultivated by neolithic Orcadians. 

Aurochs

Cows thought to have been farmed by neolithic Orcadians. 

Dating the Ness of Brodgar 

Carbon Dating from the Ness of Brodgar 

The Westrays 

What happened on Westray and Papa Westray 

In Conclusion 

Gathering together all the bits of evidence that supports the idea that Orkney was once linked to Scotland. 

 Finally 

If what I say is true,  what does it mean for the Neolithic Britain, a place that was a hub of neolithic culture, but that became isolated from Europe at a critical time in human development. 

Ice Sheet Britain 

An account of the glacial geology that formed much of the geography of the British Isles. 

Quaternary Addendum

I make some outrageous claims about the geography of the North Sea in the Quaternary period. Here,  the detailed remarks, data, and evidence are laid out.

Doggerland 

Extensive results from borings in the Southern North Sea,  between Norfolk and Dogger Bank 

Solving the Riddle 

Describes the process of unravelling the story of Quaternary and neolithic Britain.

About

It's me, no great name, talking about neolithic archaeology. 

Glacial Prehistory 

This is the story, in brief, about the glaciation of Britain. 

Jeffery Nicholls 

South Ronaldsay 

Orkney 

#Orkney #archaeology #Neolithic #prehistory #British #SkaraBrae #NessofBrodgar #BIIS ##Britice-Chrono #EarthSciences #LastGlacialMaximum #IceSheets #RelativeSeaLevel #Glaciers

Pentland Firth

 

The Orkney Riddle

The Pentland Firth 

The Pentland Firth is the channel of water that separates the Orkney archipelago from Caithness,  the northern most county of Scotland. It is deep, wide, and famously dangerous to cross,  even with modern boats and navigation systems. From the ferry crossing from Caithness to South Ronaldsay interesting surface phenomena indicate what is happening beneath the hull of the boat. Flat shiny areas of water commonly suggest an upwelling mix of currents , while whirlpools imply water being drawn down into the murky deeps.

 

"The Pentland Firth’s eastern approach hosts intricate sediment transport pathways. Time-averaging the modelled flow field revealed the recirculatory nature of the residual flow also reflected by the inferred sediment transport field identified via timeseries bathymetric analysis. 

The Pentland Firth (PF), located between mainland Scotland and Orkney, is an area of the UK continental shelf (UKCS) that experiences extreme tidal flows. These are demonstrated partly by the occurrence of mobile sedimentary bedforms (e.g dunes). 

......... 

Tidal flows of the PF result from a tidal phase difference between the east and west approaches to the channel. A resulting barotropic pressure gradient leads to flow accelerations that locally exceed 5m/s. The extreme tidal setting of the PF’s eastern approach was found to promote distinct bedforms that are spatially varied in geomorphology with distance from the PF. 

......

 The energetic tidal flows of the PF’s eastern approach interact with the highly irregular coastline, generating residual tidal counter currents leeward of flow obstructions. These counter currents (i.e. RTC vortices) are reflected in bedform migrations and thence the sediment transport pathways. As the PF is considered as a bedload parting site (BLP), the RTC vortices are expected to influence the rate of erosion at the BLP, by recirculating sediment back upstream as a counter current inshore of the main flow." (Armstrong)

.....also.....

"Penthland Firth is the name of the treacherous strait between Caithness and the Orkney Islands. It was- and is - a very dangerous area for shipping because it has one of the most powerful tidal currents in the world. This can create tidal swell waves several metres in height. In trhe eastern part of the strait, currents up to 16 knots have been measured.

Areas where the current and the tidal swell are particularly pronounced have been given names such as The Merry Men of May and The Swilkie. The latter also sometimes creates a maelstrom or whirlpool. The name Swilkie has Nordic origins meaning something like “the swallower”. According to a legend, said to date back to Viking times and also known from the Younger Edda, the maelstrom is created by a sea witch rotating the quern that grinds salt for the sea – hence the word maelstrom (mael = grind; strom = current). The Swilkie originates from a point on the small island of Stroma, whose name also has Nordic origins: “Strøm Ø” (Current Island). The place names clearly speak of the dangers of the strait!

Right up to the demise of sailing ships, sailing through the Pentland Firth was avoided if possible. The great ocean-going voyages, for example from Denmark and the Netherlands to the Colonies in the West and East Indies, went far out beyond the Orkney Islands. Since 1822 it has been possible to sail through Scotland via the Caledonian Canal, at least with ships of up to 45 m in length." (Thomsen)

A long feature stretching into the North Sea,  from the Pentland Firth, is the Sandy Riddle. This may be a remnant of a coastal beach that may have joined Caithness to Orkney in the years after the end of the last ice age.

The SandyRiddle is discussed in:- "The geology of the Moray Firth. United Kingdom Offshore Regional Report" By I J Andrews

The largest sand wave in the area, called Sandy Riddle. occurs at the eastern entrance to the Pentland Firth; it may be considered as either a sandbank or a shoal. it is 10 km in length, 1 to 2 km wide, up to 60 m high, and is composed predominantly of sandy gravel (Figure 63). Very strong tidal currents of up to 5.25 m/s occur within the Pentland Firth, but decrease rapidly south-eastwards in the open water to the east of the Pentland Skerries. Over Sandy Riddle, there is a complex pattern of eddies during periods of south-going tidal stream. The sandbank is generally asymmetric in cross-section (Figure 63), with its steep side faring south-west. Sand waves with heights of 10 m and wavelengths of 80 to 200 m are superimposed on the north-eastern flank of the sandbank; these are orientated north-south with their steeper slopes facing west. Megaripples on their backs run parallel or slightly oblique (up to 20°) to their strike, and the steep south-western face of the bank has large megaripples about 0.5 m high. The bank's profile becomes less distinct south-eastwards, and the northern end is piled against the rocky ridge of the Pentland Skerries. Seismic profiles suggest that the bulk of the shoal comprises Holocene sediments. although it is possible that there is a core of glacial material (Allen. 1983)

 

This long, narrow bank extends south-eastwards from the Pentland Skerries between Orkney and the Scottish mainland (Figure 63). Sandy Riddle has a high carbonate content (94%) rich in barnacle fragments (37%) and bivalves (32%), with lesser amounts of serpulids (12%) and bryozoa (10%). The proportion of bryozoan debris increases southwards, inversely to the serpulid distribution. The coarsest material in the north includes a significant proportion of well-rounded pebbles of the local Devonian flagstones. The accumulation rate is 581 g/m2/year.

Sources

"Sediment pathways and bedform mobility: considerations for offshore construction from the Pentland Firth, northeast UK" by Christian Armstrong et al

Mikkel H. Thomsen (www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk)

Jeffery Nicholls 

South Ronaldsay 

Orkney 

The Orkney Riddle (index here) is a series of blogs promoting the notion that Neolithic people walked from Scotland to Orkney to build the Ring of Brodgar. 

#Orkney #archaeology #Neolithic #prehistory #British #SkaraBrae #NessofBrodgar #BIIS ##Britice-Chrono 

Neolithic Migration to Orkney

 

 The Orkney Riddle

The Neolithic Migration to Orkney 

There are a large number of reports, large and small, that have been written following excavation of Neolithic sites on Orkney.  

These reports include plans, sections, find reports, bone reports, dating reports, and any other data investigations that are relevant to the site.  At the end of the report, the findings are discussed, and sone tentative conclusions are drawn. 

In discussing the conclusions that could reasonably be drawn from the data supplied by the work of excavation, many odd features are, very sensibly left in a kind of limbo. Better to conclude nothing than to assert something that no qualifying evidence supports.

Across the mass of evidence derived from the excavations of Neolithic Orkney there are enough of these archaeological peculiarities, that if collected together, they form a pattern.

The pattern does not prove the concept, but it does shift the discussion in different ways.

The following is an outline to demonstrate how the occupation of Orkney by Neolithic migrants may have developed over time.

Nomads

The Neolithic people of Britain were a nomadic group of cultures that entered the country from the Dutch region of northern Europe from before 7000 years ago until after 6000 years ago.

They came on foot, across a land bridge that is now shallow water between Holland and East Anglia, in England. 

These people brought with them a suite of technologies,  including pottery, domesticated animals, landscape structures, economic systems, community activities, timber joinery, structural engineering, and small-scale industries.

They had boats, but these were limited to dugout canoes for use on inland waters, lakes, harbours, and perhaps for crossing rivers.

These were people who had arrived in Northern Europe from the south, gathering in the Scheldt valley. As a group of various peoples we call these the Swifterbant Culture, and it was much later that the various groups included here, having established mobile populations across Britain, arrived in Orkney. 

To Orkney 

The earliest arrivals in Orkney were in 3500BC, and these people built cairns that are believed to have been designed for the housing of the prehistoric people who had died. Their human habitations for the living were mostly light timber structures that may have looked like teepees or bivouacs. With rare exceptions these structures were not designed to endure an Orkney winter. If the winter wind did not dismantle them the ground around them would have rapidly turned to mush from repeated footsteps in Orcadian heavy rainfall.

In spite of their construction of cairns, these people retained their nomadic lifestyle, at least here in Orkney. They would cross from Caithness to South Ronaldsay along a strand made up of geologically soft  ground linking those locations. 

They crossed from Scotland to Orkney every summer, returning to the south when the weather turned. As they crossed, from year to year, the people would have noted that the strand of land linking the two regions was narrowing. Sea levels were rising and coastal beaches were being eroded by strong tides.

At the very end of the 4th millennium BC, before 3000BC, when sea-level wasn't yet high enough to cause concern, the summer solstice, and the Orkney Simmerdim, became an annual event, drawing hundreds of people to settle in temporary campsites around the Harray Loch. 

While they were temporary residents, camping in Orkney, these huge groups built some of the monuments of the Orkney World Heritage Site. These include the Maeshowe Chambered Cairn, the Stones of Stenness, the Ring of Brodgar, and a couple of other henges in the area.

As seasons progressed, and people returned to Orkney, to continue this great work, the level of the sea rose, and whittled away at the strand that joined Caithness to Orkney. 

Castaways 

At a critical point in the erosion of the strand between Caithness and Orkney, most people would have read the signs, and realised that Orkney would no longer be a viable meeting place for their summer retreat. Either they would, in future, not be able to cross between the two places, or if they did they might not be able to return to Scotland. 

The greater number of people did not return to Orkney. Their campsite was abandoned just after 3000BC, and the stone circles that they were building remained, incomplete. 

The very few people that remained in Orkney formed into small co-habiting communities, and built solid structures of stone and timber, with covered drains, and great windbreaks, or covered interconnecting passages. 

The buildings that these people constructed were among the most complex and revolutionary structures built in Britain at the time, but their longevity was distinctly limited by the deterioration of the roofing timbers.

These communities were based at Skara Brae,  and the Ness of Brodgar.

Mariners

In the middle of the 3rd millennium BC boats were being developed , and mariners were setting out, from Britain and Europe, to explore offshore islands, like Orkney. 

The mariners arrived at several coastal locations in Orkney, where they set up camp in the ruins of the dwellings that had housed the earlier inhabitants of Orkney.

In some places they appear to have visited the islands briefly, pulled their boats onto land, and hunted the wild aurochs and other beasts roaming the landscape. In other places more permant settlements may have been established. 

When the mariners in their boats arrived in Orkney in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC it is possible that they met face-to-face with some of the surviving ancestors of the Neolithic Orcadian Founding Population.

*

 Map of Orkney,  showing Neolithic sites

Jeffery Nicholls 

South Ronaldsay 

Orkney 

The Orkney Riddle (index here) is a series of blogs promoting the notion that Neolithic people walked from Scotland to Orkney to build the Ring of Brodgar. 

#Orkney #archaeology #Neolithic #prehistory #British #SkaraBrae #NessofBrodgar #BIIS ##Britice-Chrono