Exploring the Neolithic in the Orkneys
I just returned from five days on “the Mainland”, the largest of the Orkney Islands, and was sufficiently inspired to resurrect my poor neglected blog. The Orkneys lie about 15km NE of John o’Groats, the northeastern corner of Scotland. At c. 59˚N, the days are very long at this time of year, and we were lucky to have them also partly sunny. “We” are a crew from Oregon - Jim O’Connor, his wife Karen Dempsey and daughter Anna (who just graduated from St. Andrews, thus providing Karen and Jim with an excuse to come to Scotland), and Andrew Fountain and his wife Virginia Butler, professors at Portland State University who are in Bristol for 5 months. They had planned a trip to the Orkneys, which I’ve wanted to visit for years, so I decided to tag along.
The Orkneys are best known for their wealth of archaeology - including the Heart of Neolithic Orkney UNESCO World Heritage site. It also has 13 RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) reserves. So our 4.5 days of exploration felt as if we had only scratched the surface... and then there are all of the other small islands. So I’ll have to go back. Below is a brief overview of some of the amazing places that we visited.
THE HEART OF NEOLITHIC ORKNEY comprises several different Neolithic monuments that lie on an isthmus separating the Lochs of Stenness and Harray. The Ring of Brodgar is one of the youngest, at 2000-2500 BC (about the same age as Stonehenge). It a large (104 m diameter) stone circle surrounded by an outer ditch that was dug into the sandstone bedrock. Of the original 60 stones, 27 are still standing; others are collapsed or missing altogether.
Southeast, and past the narrowest part of the isthmus, are the Standing Stones of Stenness. They form a much smaller circle than the Ring of Brodgar and originally contained only 12 stones, but the stones are taller (up to 5.7m) and dramatic with their angled tops. The stones in both circles derive from the Old Red Sandstone that forms most of the islands; more specifically, the Stromness flagstone, which explains the tall thin stones. This stone circle is thought to be older than the Ring of Brodgar at c. 3000 BC. A major occupational site of the same age - the Ness of Brodgar - was discovered in 2002. Excavations are ongoing, but have included not only amazing stone buildings but also decorated pottery and the first evidence of Neolithic wall painting! Unfortunately, this season’s excavations will start next week, so we couldn’t see them.
Other structures in the area include the Barnhouse settlement, a cluster of at least 15 circular houses that also dates to 3000 BC, and Maeshowe, one of the largest burial mounds in Neolithic Europe. No photos because photos weren’t allowed inside. It was built around 2500 BC of truly massive stones, which build upward to a corbelled ceiling. Like Newgrange in Ireland (its rival for the “largest” claim), it is aligned toward the setting sun in midwinter so that the setting sun shines between two hills on neighboring island Hoy and illuminates the interior of the tomb as the light travels up the narrow entrance tunnel. It makes sense to me that the people here would want to mark the winter solstice as the point where light starts to return. The flipside, of course, is the length of the days in the summer; my sunset photos were taken at about 10:30pm.
SKARA BRAE The most famous Neolithic site on the island is Skara Brae, an extraordinarily well preserved settlement that was abandonned c. 2500 BC. It is really amazing - feels like you could move right in. And makes you realize that 5000 years is not much in the scheme of human history. The homes come complete with beds demarcated by stone slabs (and including a little nook in the adjoining wall for a bedtime book [the latter is my interpretation], shelves made of stone, a large central hearth, inside passages connecting the individual houses, and even inside plumbing (well, certainly drains to control the runoff from the shallow bedrock).
THE CAIRNS PROJECT The amazing thing about the Orkneys is that archaeology doesn’t stop in the Neolithic, but is nicely layered to the present. The next substantial structures that dot the landscape are the Iron Age brochs, built sometime after 500 BC. They are round drystone towers that were originally up to 10m high and thought to be defensive, at least in part. The first one that we visited is an active excavation by Martin Carruthers, a researcher and teacher at the Orkney campus of the University of the Highlands and Islands (I love the name!). Virginia contacted him ahead of time, and he gave a fabulous tour and explanation of the site, which includes not only the central broch but also encroaching and overlapping later settlements outside the original walls. The broch walls are 5 m thick; the interior diameter of the central structure is 11m. So far, their dates put it at 140-190AD, which overlaps with the Roman occupation of Britain. The site is rich with artifacts. It also has a somewhat different astronomical feature - a hole in a stone that is oriented for the autumn equinox, at which point the sun projects through the hole onto a flat stone behind. Thus is appears that for these agricultural people, the harvest was the most important time to mark. Another interesting feature (apparently common to other brochs) are spiral stairs that lead down to subterranean caverns; perhaps storage, but also perhaps ceremonial. One indication is that the stairs are anti-clockwise, in contrast to aboveground stairs that spiral upwards in a clockwise direction.
BROCH OF GURNESS A nice complement to the Cairns dig is the Broch of Gurness, an Iron Age Broch that has been “prettied up” for tourists. The semi-circular ditches here are similar to Iron Age forts in SW England, and were constructed c. 400 BC; the broch was probably constructed around 200 BC and abandonned c. 100 AD.
After this time, like the Cairns site, it hosted numerous surrouncing Pictish farmhouses. These are followed by a single 9th century Viking grave.
BROUGH OF BIRSAY As far as I can tell, “broch” and “brough” are the same word... but here on Birdsay there is no broch but instead the remains of two Viking settlements and one 12th century church, as well as some Pictish artifacts. The Picts as a confederation of northern Scottish tribes were first described by the Romans in AD 297, so that seems to be the earliest date ascribed to them, although they clearly descended from the broch builders. They are thought to be ‘celtic’ (although that is a vague term), as demonstrated, among other things, by the style of their carvings (including the stone here). When the Vikings arrive from the north in the 9th century, this outpost became an important stronghold of Earl Thorfinn Sigurdarson; his story is recorded in the Orkneyinga Saga. The Norse habitations are oval-shaped, and contrast with the rectilinear form of the 12th century church (probably Benedictine or Augustinian. The brough lies just below a headland on a tidal island that is accessible for about 4 hours around high tide.
The island is capped by a Stevenson lighthouse that warn of the low-lying skerries around the island.
Perhaps most fun for us were all the seabirds - it’s nesting season, so the cliffs are decorated with nesting gulls, pigeon guillemots, razorbills, terns and puffins. There were also skuas and eider ducks plus, I’m sure, a lot of birds that I missed!
The coast around Birsay also provides hints about the origin of the distinctive slant to the standing stones, as the flagstones here are fractured into remarkably geometric patterns. And history continues and merges past and present. The Birsay coast is home to a “geo”, a small harbor used to both launch and store boats in, what are now, grassy hollows. Here we also found whalebone as scuplture and picnic wind protection of a form remarkably similar to Skara Brae houses.
Striking coastal sandstone cliffs are not limited to the north; they can also be seen in the southeast coast, particularly around Yesnaby.
Another important chapter in Orkeny history came with the world wars, which used the Scapa Flow, a large protected body of water south of the Mainland, for the British naval fleet and, after WWII, as a place to scuttle captured German vessels. Although there has been some salvage, the rusting hulks of some of the ships can still be seen in the shallower parts of the bay. On a more uplifting note, a popular tourist stop is the Italian Chapel, on the island of Lamb Holm (now connected to the Mainland by a road). It was built during WWII by Italian prisoners, and has beautiful painting inside with remarkable trompe l’oeil tiles, columns and other decorative elements.
A few photos of the present. The composite below has various random components. In the center, peacefully sleeper is John Rae, a doctor and arctic explorer who found the last part of the NW passage and figured out the fate of the Franklin expedition. Although he was FRS and FRGS (geographical society), he was shunned by the British establishment because of his report that the Franklin expedition had resorted to cannibalism (which went against the glorification of the expedition by Lady Franklin. So instead of being buried in Westminster Cathedral like other famous British explorers, he is buried in the Kirkwall cathedral - we think that he got the better deal, because he looks so comfortable. The other photos are of the Orkney Brewery, which makes Corncrake Ale, Raven Ale, Orkney Gold, 3 Sisters Ale and, as you can see, Skullsplitter Ale, which speaks to the Norse heritage. Which leads to another interesting story... the transfer of the Orkneys from Norway to Scotland in 1468 as part of the dowry of Margaret, daughter of Norwegian king Christian I, for her marriage to James III of Scotland. On the left are a couple of views of the town of Stromness, from the "Harray Potter" to the peaceful evening scene (photographed at about 10:30pm).
Finally, there is my Orkney home - the Castlehill guest house, where hostess Denise provides abundant really good food, dispenses information about the islands and generally hosts a revolving international gathering of guests. She is shown here with her son’s dog Oscar and German guest Andreas; Andreas and his wife Sabine (below) were there for the entire time that I was, and provided fun company and interesting dinner conversation.
