Skara Brae

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SKARA BRAE
A Deserted Settlement

While no-one is certain as to who actually built or inhabited this site, the certainty lies in the knowledge that it was deserted rather suddenly, around 2,650 B.C. this would have been around the same time as Stonehenge was deserted, around 2,600 B.C. Considering that radiocarbon dating to this period has an acceptable error of 55 years, it would seem that both Skara Brae and Stonehenge were deserted at the same time. This desertion was more than sudden. This is known because a small pile of bone beads was found strewn along the main passageway, suggesting that the owner of

REFERENCES:

Clarke, D.V., Sharples, N.; (1985) "Settlements and Subsistence in the 3rd Millenium", found in The Prehistory of Orkney, ed. Renfrew, C., Edinburgh University Press.

Figure 1: Skara Brae in the Orkney islands. Image by Sigurd Towrie.

Figure 2: Skara Brae from above. Click for larger image (by Simon Harbord).

Figure 3: Example of the stonework of Skara Brae. Click for larger image.

Figure 4: The central plaza at Skara Brae.

Figure 7: An aerial view of the Workshop. Image by Simon Harbord.

Within the settlement there are eight apartments, all having standardised stone cupboards, fireplaces, bedsteads, watertanks, and seats. Of the eight apartments, six are linked by a main corridor, but the seventh is reached by a separate tunnel running at right angles off the main corridor. There is also a separate house, termed the Workshop (see figure 7), which stands on the far side of a paved open-air courtyard, as seen in figure 4. This is known to be the first of the apartments built, and thus its different appearance, as it was more than likely built to accomodate the inhabitants as a temporary measure during construction of the other apartments. After this initial period, it served as the workshop for the settlement (hence its current name).

This is one of the most fascinanting sites in Scotland. It is an ancient village on the western facing Atlantic coast of Orkney, a small group of islands which lie about thirty kilometres north of the Scottish mainland. It was discovered in 1,850 A.D. when a strong storm tore away the turf from the sand dunes on the edge of Skaill Bay, exposing this settlement to the light for the first time in almost 5,000 years. Because of this type of aggressive erosion, Skara Brae now stands right by the shore. During its lifetime, however, the village would have been some distance from the sea.

This site has been accurately dated using samples of pottery found embedded in midden material and radiocarbon dated, giving the pottery a reliable date. This dating puts the settlement at around 3,100 B.C., prior to the commencement of work at Stonehenge.

There are many theories concerning the inhabitants, such as the idea that they were shipwrecked travellers.

This is based on the fact that these people had rudementary tools, and yet they had the capacity to build this place, with a thoroughness of design and such quality of building, with what resembles Egyptian heiroglyphics carved into some of the stonework. But these people had no means to get off the island, as there was no trees of any kind to build boats. So how could they have knowledge of Egyptian culture or their writing methods? This theory is accurately described here.

Figure 5: The infamous lozenge found at Skara Brae.

the necklace had snapped its cord whilst rushing from their apartment (apartment 7), and had no time to collect the dropped beads. It must be made clear that beads such as these would have been of enormous value to these people; hard to obtain, difficult to shape. Also, there remains within one of the wall cupboards a horde of 2,400 inscribed beads and pendants that must have been of immense value, and yet they were left behind.

This settlement, 2,500 years before the city of Rome, was built with a fully developed sewerage system. There at present exists a modern day metal sewerage cover, that protects a 5,000 year old stone-built drainage channel which connected the houses to an oufall at the sea edge. The drains were made of stone and had originally been lined with tree bark to make them watertight. It was indeed a remarkably sophisticated system for its time.

Figure 6: the hieroglpyhs found in apartment seven that resemble rudimentary Egyptian hieroglyphics.

There also existed a stone age water tank, with its seams packed with clay. Many of the houses here also came equipped with a small adjoining chamber connected to the drainage system which obviously were ancient lavatories, as the contents of the drains were examined, and were found to contain high levels of human excrement (Clarke and Sharples 1985).

Among the items left here by the original inhabitants were a small number of beautifully crafted stone objects. The two most intricate objects are stone balls: one 6.2 cm in diametre has been carved all over with the lozenge seen in figure 5; the other, a slightly larger ball of 7.7cm diametre, has been carved with grooves and knobs of a pyramidal nature. Viewed closely, in their display case at Skara Brae, one can see that they were highly polished as if they had handled a great deal. In fact, they appeared to have been handled far more than the inscribed "Skaill" knives, which were also on display, and which, as tools, might have been expected to show much greater polish from usage.

Around 400 similar, but less ornate, stone balls have been found in other parts of Scotland between the River Tay and the Moray Firth. Their re-creation using stone tools is relatively easy, but the more elaborate balls of Skara Brae, however, are more difficult to explain. Attempts to re-create them using Stone Age tools by engineer James Macauley failed, as it proved impossible to carve the difficult angles without using strong metal tools. For those other balls it had been suggested that the more intricate patterns had been carved during the Bronze and Iron ages. However, the stone balls of Skara Brae were found beneath the layer of wind-blown sand which was laid down when the village was abandoned in 2,655 B.C. - long before any metal objects reached this part of the world.

This poses the question, did the engineers of Skara Brae know something about the technology of working stone that we have forgotten?

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