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? …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
A henge at Staneyhill in Harray?
Another large ditch-and-bank enclosure in Orkney’s West Mainland. But is it actually a Neolithic ‘henge’? …
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 …
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 …
A mile or so north west of the Ring of Brodger, the ditched enclosure known as the Ring of Bookan comprises a flat-bottomed ditch surrounding an oval, raised platform …
Wasbister settlement and disc barrow
During the Bronze Age, people gravitated towards the sites of already ancient monuments to bury their dead. As a result, clusters of barrow mounds can often be found around chambered cairns and other Neolithic monuments …
