With Travis, it is not enough to find just one piece of pitchstone – within hours of finding the rather nice blade yesterday, he appeared clutching a finds bag from the sample sorting that contained ten examples of pitchstone micro debitage – tiny fragments that are created as a by-product …
Another flake of Arran pitchstone has turned up during the analysis of soil samples from Structure Eight. Pitchstone is a volcanic glass, similar to obsidian, and its nearest source is the isle of Arran, off the south-west coast of Scotland. In Orkney, it has only been found at the Ness …
In November 2019, the Ness of Brodgar excavation project was selected for a 2019 Shanghai Archaeology Forum Field Discovery Award. In December, site director Nick Card was flown to Shanghai, courtesy of the forum, to accept the award. He is pictured above, seventh from the left, among the other recipients …
With all our volunteer places for the 2020 excavation full, we’re already receiving a flood of inquiries about 2021. Could we ask that anyone interested in volunteering next year hold off contacting us until October 2020, by which time we will know if we’ve raised the necessary funds to continue …
Huge congratulations to Sam Harris, a regular at the Ness over the last few years, who has just been granted his PhD from Bradford University. Sam’s HES-funded thesis Developing Archaeomagnetic Dating for Neolithic Scotland was based largely on samples he extracted from the hearths at the Ness. The project developed …
The new Ness “Tam o Brodgar” knitting pattern is now available to buy as a digital download to raise funds for our ongoing excavations. The fundraiser is a collaboration with Orkney Tweed, who stock printed copies of the pattern as well as the wool packs to create your own stylish …
Another four Ness newsletters – numbers 16-19, covering 2019 – are now available to download as PDFs.
A new Ness fundraiser launches in Orkney tomorrow, Friday, December 20. The Ness “Tam o Brodgar” knitting patterns will be on sale at Orkney Tweed, 23 Victoria Street, Kirkwall, to raise funds for our ongoing excavations at the Ness of Brodgar. Initially, the patterns and wool packs will only be …
Over the last few seasons we have discovered many sherds of pottery that exhibit colour. The Ness is one of the very few sites in the UK where this has been recognised and may represent the oldest polychrome pottery in Britain. A new paper – Analysis of coloured Grooved Ware …
Since before we starting digging this year, our inbox has been positively bursting at the seams with emails from people looking to volunteer for the 2020 excavation season. Although we’ve not quite reached the 1,200 applications we had for 2019, it was close! All our volunteer and student places are …
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The Ness of Brodgar has been congratulated in the Scottish Parliament for its success in the 2019 Shanghai Archaeology Forum Field Discovery Awards. The motion (detailed below) was tabled by Orkney MSP Liam McArthur and is the second time the project has been acknowledged at Holyrood. The first was in …
The Ness of Brodgar has been selected for a 2019 Shanghai Archaeology Forum Field Discovery Award. Having heard we had been nominated a few weeks ago, we have just learnt that we have won an award. For this year’s forum, a total of 141 nominations from around the world were …
The dates for the 2020 excavation season at the Ness have been confirmed. We will be back on site from July 6, 2020 until August 21, 2020, with the site open to the public, with tours running, from July 8 until August 19. Next year’s two open days will be …
