Category: News

Archaeologist, historian and television presenter Neil Oliver is the guest on this week’s BBC History Extra podcast, talking about his new book, The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places. In the podcast, the Ness of Brodgar is named one of Neil’s top five favourite sites in the country. The …

Among the 160 diggers working at the Ness this summer was Ross Drummond, an MSc student studying archaeology at the University of the Highlands and Islands. Ross’s Ness experience was one of a number of excavations he took part in over the summer. and in a new article over at www.archaeologyorkney.com, …

There’s two new ways you can help support our ongoing research at the Ness. AmazonSmile is a website operated by Amazon, with the same products, prices and shopping features as Amazon.co.uk – the difference is that when you shop on AmazonSmile, Amazon will donate 0.5 per cent of the net purchase price …

This year the Art Hut was upgraded from the wooden shed of last year to a large portacabin generously supplied by Orkney Aggregates – and the number of artists increased to five. We were open to the public and nearly 1,400 people came to see what Artists in Residence do, …

As we enter the last week of the 2018 season, we would like to ask for some help from anyone free on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday next week (August 22, 23 and 24). The site is closing for the season, and to protect our valuable structures from the ravages of an Orcadian …

Some links to recent news stories and articles: Elisabeth Holder – Working Away British Archaeology Magazine – the printed magazine features a review of Woody Musgrove’s new book, Ness of Brodgar: Open to the Public The Herald: Archaeologists hail find of 5,000-year-old stone axes Press and Journal: Two ‘pristine’ stone axes …

This weekend will see our final Open Day of the 2018 season. Amongst other things, on display will be the axes, macehead, spatulas and incised stones found this year – a chance for everyone to get up close to some of the finest Neolithic Orcadian stone tools you’ll ever see, …

  for weeks the Neolithic midden clung to my clothes, hair, and skin or lay embedded in fingerprints, under fingernails, in open cuts now it’s falling off slowly as dust on to twenty first century technology on the seats of taxis and airplanes and cotton hotel bedsheets and duvets it’s …

Feast Diane Eagles – Artist in residence Three ritual feasting vessels, entitled Milk, Beef and Beer, are endowed with symbolic references to Neolithic ceramics and the Ness of Brodgar. They are coloured white, red and black, referencing the importance of colour on the site, and the items they connect to. Milk …

Dry Days in Orkney Painting Structure 12

The dig this year is being closely followed from all the way down in Adelaide, South Australia. Scotch College is a co-educational independent school with strong Scottish foundations established in 1919. The school has an excellent humanities curriculum, and now potentially a few budding archaeologists. Anna Martin is a parent …

Another not-to-be-missed exhibition featuring material from the Ness is running at the Orkney Museum, Kirkwall, Tracing the Lines: Pots and People in the Late Neolithic is the brainchild of two long-term supervisors at the Ness – Mike and Claire Copper, two of the country’s foremost prehistoric pot experts – and follows …

A reminder that the Ness-inspired exhibition at the Stromness Museum features artefacts from the excavation to date as well as arts and crafts inspired by the dig.