The Ness of Brodgar Excavations

Day Thirty An international affair… One of the factors which makes studying archaeology with the University of the Highlands and Islands in Orkney such an enjoyable affair is the presence of students from all over the world. At the moment, Structure One is benefitting from the efforts of Fabrizio and …

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Day Twenty-Nine Joining the dots in ‘bling central’ We haven’t mentioned Structure Eight much lately. Formerly known as “bling central” because of the extravagance of the artefacts found within it (whalebone mace- head, spatulas, whale tooth etc), it has been rather quiet this season. Not now. Working in one of …

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Day Twenty-Eight A tale of two orthostats… Structure Twenty-Six is one of the oddest buildings we have excavated at the Ness. It is a peculiar shape, with walling which at one end looks like a blocked-up entrance, but might be something else. Its relationship to the structures around is still …

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Day Twenty-Seven More axes from opposite ends of the site There is something about polished stone axes. We know that many of them were utilitarian items, something like the Swiss Army Knife of the Neolithic. Yet the best examples are beautiful and fashioned from banded stone of varying colours before …

Two shots, courtesy of Scott’s drone, of the Ness of Brodgar today.