Around the Ness: ‘Little Barnhouse’ mound
By Sigurd Towrie Most visitors to the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site will be familiar with Maeshowe. Few, however, will know that what appears to be an equally large chambered cairn stands...
Category: Around the Ness
Around the Ness: the Comet Stone
“The old track now passes by a small, solitary standing stone slab, encircled in green for some distance around its base and finally merging again into heather.” George Marwick. The Standing Stones of Stenness...
A natural cursus? Water, walls and walking the Ness
“Seven thousand years ago, Mesolithic hunter gatherers walked the long ridge of land in the heart of Orkney, known today as the Ness of Brodgar. Later, Neolithic farmers chose that land to erect massive...
The Dyke of Sean – a third monumental wall crossing the Ness
Visitors to the excavation are always fascinated by the two monumental walls flanking the Ness of Brodgar complex. The sight of the beautiful stonework of the four-metre (13ft) thick section of the “Great Wall...
Agents of transformation – the role of chambered cairns in Neolithic Orkney
The presence of two styles of Neolithic chambered cairn in Orkney has led to years of debate on their dates, use and development. Here, Sigurd looks at current thinking on Orkney’s cairns, particularly in...
Around the Ness: The Watchstone
“When on the way to the Bridge of Brogar, attention is at once arrested by a singly giant monolith … standing erect, like a giant sentinel, called the Watch Stone” James Macbeath. The Orkneys...
Ness flanked by lochs in prehistory? Surveys suggest otherwise
By Sigurd Towrie Standing on the Ness of Brodgar, you can see why the peninsula was chosen to site some of the best-known ceremonial monuments of the Orcadian Neolithic. The Ness sits at the...
2013 road work revealed structure beyond the ‘Great Wall’
Visitors to the Ness of Brodgar site are always staggered to learn that we have excavated less than ten per cent of the complex. The sheer scale of the Neolithic complex has become more...