Five years after the Wideford Hill settlement excavations, fieldwalking along the hill’s south-western base recovered tantalising evidence a second Neolithic settlement on low ground beneath the nearby chambered cairn. Read more
Ahead of planned agricultural improvements, the prehistoric site at Howe was excavated from 1978 until 1982 – an operation that revealed a complex series of occupation episodes spanning the Neolithic to Iron Age. Read more
The Wideford Hill settlement, in use from c3600-2900BC, lies at the north-western foot of the hill, south-west of Crossiecrown and east of the Stonehall settlement. Its discovery and excavation in 2002-2003 revealed a missing chapter from the biography of Neolithic Orkney – timber houses. Read more
A mile or so north west of the Ring of Brodger, the ditched enclosure known as the Ring of Bookan comprises a flat-bottomed ditch surrounding an oval, raised platform. Read more
Parallels with Barnhouse and the Ness of Brodgar hint that the Crossiecrown “double-house” was more than a dwelling. The quality of the internal stonework, the deposited artefacts and the fact the Red House had been “decorated” suggests we have another example of a “big house” – a structure with “enhanced ancestral significance and status”. Read more
The burnt animal bone assemblage from the Ness of Brodgar is the subject of a new funded Masters by Research (MRes) studentship available from the UHI Archaeology Institute. Read more
The Crossiecrown settlement lay in the northern shadow of Wideford Hill, on low ground to the north-east of the Quanterness cairn. Occupied from around 3300BC to 1800BC, the site spanned the Orcadian Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Read more
Otter encounters around the Ness mean we’ve got a bumper selection of photographs from site director Nick this week.
As you’ll see from the pics, the otter was wrestling with… Read more