Lozenge-shaped stone dwellings linked by covered passages huddled close together against the grim winters. âWhat the Ness is telling us is that this was a much more integrated landscape than anyone ever suspected,â says Card. Archaeologist Nick Card, excavation director with the Archaeology Institute at the University of the Highlands and Islands, says the recent discovery of these stunning ruins is turning British prehistory on its head. Yet none of them had the slightest idea what lay beneath their feet.âThis is almost on the scale of some of the great classical sites in the Mediterranean, like the Acropolis in Greece, except these structures are 2,500 years older. All rights reservedItâs also clear that they had plenty of willing hands and strong backs to put to the cause.
âBut a society as powerful and well connected as they were must surely have known that profound changes were coming their way. âWe donât know.ââItâs been assumed that the woodland was cleared away by Neolithic farmers, but that doesnât seem to have been entirely the case,â says Michelle Farrell, a paleoecologist at Queenâs University Belfast who studies past land use and environmental change. Distinctive colored pottery sherds found at the Ness and elsewhere, for example, suggest that the trademark style of grooved pottery that became almost universal throughout Neolithic Britain had its origin in Orkney. They were out to make a statement.âFast-forward five millennia to a balmy summer afternoon on a scenic headland known as the Ness of Brodgar. And with a holding of breath, I had a one-of-a-kind photo taken with it, the next day.I was sitting near Lochview, trying to shelter from the wind that suddenly burst upon me and trying to focus on Trench T in its summer overgrowth. The Ness of Brodgar Excavation © 2020. Not only did the metal alloy introduce better tools and weapons. It also brought with it fresh ideas, new values, and possibly a shake-up of the social order.After cracking open the bones to extract the rich marrow inside, the people arranged them in intricate piles around the base of the temple. The Ness of Brodgar is a Neolithic Age site discovered in 2002 CE through a geophysical survey of the area of land in Stenness in Orkney, Scotland, which separates the salt water Stenness Loch from the fresh water Harray Loch. The rain stopped, and I turned a bit to my left wanting to do something with those two stones standing in the front of Lochview. âTo be able to link these structures with art, to see in such a direct and personal way how people embellished their surroundings, is really something.âMaes Howe also aligns with the central axis and entrance to the newly discovered temple on the Ness, something archaeologists believe is no coincidence. It was more than 80 feet long and 60 feet wide, with walls 13 feet thick. Five thousand years ago the ancient inhabitants of Orkneyâa fertile, green archipelago off the northern tip of modern-day Scotlandâerected a complex of monumental buildings unlike anything they had ever attempted before.Indeed one of the structures apparently served as a kind of paint shop, complete with piles of pigment still on the floor: powdered hematite (red), ocher (yellow), and galena (white), together with the dimpled rocks and grinding stones that served as mortar and pestle.One thing is certain, says Farrell: âThe open nature of the landscape would have made life much easier for those early farmers. The bigger one has such an uncanny tilt with the most delightful bunch of green lichen growing on it.Immediately, I saw that the knobs could be turned to show 1, 2, 3, 4 as if there was a sequence to turning it. The imposing walls they built would have done credit to the Roman centurions who, some 30 centuries later, would erect Hadrianâs Wall in another part of Britain.Skara Brae must have been a cozy setup in its day. Although itâs usually referred to as a temple, itâs likely to have fulfilled a variety of functions during the thousand years it was in use. These artifacts suggest that Orkney was on an established trade route and that the temple complex on the Ness may have been a site of pilgrimage.It was also blessed with some of the richest farming soils in Britain and a surprisingly mild climate, thanks to the effects of the Gulf Stream. Fast-forward five millennia to a balmy summer afternoon on a scenic headland known as the Ness of Brodgar. Stenness, the Ring of Brodgar, and the newly discovered “Ness of Brodgar” form the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site. Unlike other parts of Britain, where houses were built with timber, thatch, and other materials that rot away over time, Orcadians had abundant outcrops of fine, easily worked sandstone for building homes and temples that could last for centuries.Whatever the reason, the ancient temple was decommissioned and partially destroyed, deliberately and symbolically.