Stenness youngsters get hands-on with Ness-related topics

As part of their ongoing Stenness Past, Present and Future project, our education officer Katy Firth has been helping Stenness Primary School pupils get hands-on with Ness-related topics.

After expressing interest in looking at Neolithic travel and transport, an outdoor session last month saw the older primary pupils experiment with moving stones using rollers and experience the different challenges involved in shifting heavy materials across the landscape. Meanwhile, the younger children got creative, building rafts from twigs and string to explore how cattle might have been transported across water.

The school then organised a trip to the Ring of Brodgar, where Katy met the children on site, alongside Elaine and Kerry from Historic Environment Scotland’s rangers team.

The stone circle was an ideal setting to talk about the local natural resources available to the Neolithic inhabitants of the area. Katy introduced the idea that the lochs and landscape have changed over time and have provided a source of food throughout history. One such resource was the European eel.

The critically endangered European eel has a remarkable life cycle and Katy introduced the children to its story. Over 600 pieces of eel bone were recovered from excavations at the Ness of Brodgar and Katy showed some of Nick Card’s photos of wildlife in the Stenness loch eating eels, demonstrating their importance in the local food webs here in the present day.

The children then painted eel drawings using natural pigments, another resource uncovered at the site.

To round off a truly wide-ranging project, the pupils will be receiving their Heritage Hero Awards from Archaeology Scotland before the end of term. These will be a well-deserved recognition of all the enthusiasm, curiosity, and hard work they’ve poured into exploring their Neolithic heritage.