Category: Around the Ness

Around the Ness / Further Afield / Settlements

Friday, April 25, 2025

Was there more to Neolithic ‘dressers’ than just a set of shelves?

In the years since Skara Brae’s excavation, there has been much debate over the role, and significance, of the so-called “dressers” that have become icons for the site. Read more

Around the Ness

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

A henge at Staneyhill in Harray?

Another large ditch-and-bank enclosure in Orkney's West Mainland. But is it actually a Neolithic 'henge'? Read more

Around the Ness

Thursday, April 10, 2025

The Overbigging enclosure – an ‘elaborate and rather enigmatic monument’

Neolithic or later? A look at the large ditch-and-bank enclosure, near Overbigging, about 480 metres north-west of Maeshowe. Read more

Around the Ness / Chambered Cairns

Thursday, March 27, 2025

Maeshowe – the mummies, the giant and the mound-dweller…

A look at what may have lain behind the 1861 newspaper claim of two mummies and a giant in Maeshowe. Read more

Around the Ness / Ring of Brodgar

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Fruitless and forgotten – the 1861 excavation inside the Ring of Brodgar

For many, many years, the uncertainty surrounding what, if anything, lay inside the Ring of Brodgar has been put down to the fact the interior is unexcavated. But now, it seems, that is not the case. Read more

The 'Brodgar Stone' found on the Ness in February 1925. (Picture courtesy of Orkney Library Photographic Archive)

Around the Ness / Artefacts

Thursday, February 27, 2025

100 years on: the discovery of the ‘Brodgar Stone’ at Ness complex site

100 years ago this week the 'Brodgar Stone' was found - a taste of things to come. Read more

Maeshowe Solstice (Historic Environment Scotland)

Around the Ness / Chambered Cairns / Video

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Video: The dead of winter – Maeshowe and the solstice

Today, Saturday, December 21, is the winter solstice - a day inextricably linked to Maeshowe in Stenness. Read more

Around the Ness

Friday, December 20, 2024

The centre of their world – a place where heaven, earth and people met

By natural coincidence the Ness of Brodgar peninsula roughly lines up with a solstice axis. Is this one of the reason's the area became a magnet to people for millennia? Read more

Around the Ness / Ring of Brodgar / Stones of Stenness

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Digging into henges and henging…

The Ring of Brodgar and Stones of Stenness have been classed as "henges" since the term was coined in the 1930s. But are they really? And what exactly is a henge? Read more

Around the Ness / Ring of Brodgar / Stones of Stenness

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Traditional names or just another ‘Loda’ old nonsense?

Is there any truth to the antiquarian claims that the two Stenness circles were traditionally known as the 'Temples of the Sun and Moon'? Read more

Around the Ness / Stones of Stenness

Monday, May 22, 2023

Spirits of the Standing Stones

The early antiquarians who documented Orkney's ancient monuments paid little attention to the local beliefs surrounding the sites. Read more

Around the Ness

Friday, March 31, 2023

The Ness of Brodgar from above

Structure Twelve supervisor Jim Rylatt is in Orkney at present, juggling hundreds of contexts to piece together a phased timeline for the building. On one of the few reasonably pleasant… Read more

Around the Ness / Chambered Cairns

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

The Bookan Chambered Cairn

At some point in the Neolithic a small, multi-chambered structure was built on high ground at the north-western end of the Ness of Brodgar. Read more

https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1659069

Around the Ness / Chambered Cairns

Friday, March 3, 2023

The Ness of Onston enclosure

North of the Unstan stalled cairn is an enigmatic earthwork that separates the landward side of the Ness of Onston from the headland. This arc of two banks and ditches runs across the width of the headland, demarcating an area to the north that is now devoid of features or visible archaeological remains. Read more

Around the Ness / Standing Stones

Friday, January 27, 2023

The Staneyhill stone (and round about)

A solitary megalith towers over a Neolithic quarry about 350 metres to the south-east of the Staneyhill horned cairn. Read more

Around the Ness / Podcast

Sunday, January 15, 2023

Link: ‘Orkney – Centre of the Stone Age’ podcast

A new podcast from History Hit, looking at Orkney's Neolithic remains, including Maeshowe, the Ring of Brodgar, Skara Brae and a section on the Ness of Brodgar, featuring Nick Card and Roy Towers. Read more

Around the Ness / Chambered Cairns

Friday, January 13, 2023

Staneyhill long horned cairn

Across the waters of the Harray loch, just over two miles north-east of the Ness of Brodgar complex, is one of the few known Orcadian examples of a Neolithic long horned cairn. Read more

Around the Ness / Ring of Brodgar / Stones of Stenness

Friday, December 16, 2022

Chasing the ‘Brodgar road’ – the claimed route of the stone circle megaliths

For many years I have been fascinated by an “old tradition” of a prehistoric, eight-mile-long track known as the “Brodgar Road”. This, it was said, marked the route of the megaliths bound for the Ring of Brodgar and Stones of Stenness from the quarry site at Vestrafiold. Read more

Category: Around the Ness

Was there more to Neolithic ‘dressers’ than just a set of shelves?

A henge at Staneyhill in Harray?

The Overbigging enclosure – an ‘elaborate and rather enigmatic monument’

Maeshowe – the mummies, the giant and the mound-dweller…

Fruitless and forgotten – the 1861 excavation inside the Ring of Brodgar

100 years on: the discovery of the ‘Brodgar Stone’ at Ness complex site

Video: The dead of winter – Maeshowe and the solstice

The centre of their world – a place where heaven, earth and people met

Digging into henges and henging…

Traditional names or just another ‘Loda’ old nonsense?

Spirits of the Standing Stones

The Ness of Brodgar from above

The Bookan Chambered Cairn

The Ness of Onston enclosure

The Staneyhill stone (and round about)

Link: ‘Orkney – Centre of the Stone Age’ podcast

Staneyhill long horned cairn

Chasing the ‘Brodgar road’ – the claimed route of the stone circle megaliths

Around the Ness

Orkney’s Prehistory

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