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Skara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland.
It consisted of ten clustered houses, made of flagstones, in earthen dams that provided support for the walls; the houses included stone hearths, beds, and cupboards. A primitive sewer system, with toilets and drains in each house, included water used to flush waste into a drain and out to the ocean.
The site was occupied from roughly 3180 BC to about 2500 BC and is Europe's most complete Neolithic village.
Skara Brae gained UNESCO World Heritage Site status as one of four sites making up The Heart of Neolithic Orkney. Older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids of Giza, it has been called the Scottish Pompeii because of its excellent preservation.
Care of the site is the responsibility of Historic Environment Scotland which works with partners in managing the site: Orkney Islands Council, NatureScot (Scottish Natural Heritage), and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Visitors to the site are welcome during much of the year.
Uncovered by a storm in 1850, the coastal site may now be at risk from climate change.
In the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll; the name Skara Brae is a corruption of Skerrabra or Styerrabrae, which originally referred to the knoll. When the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village consisting of several small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, a son of the local laird who was a self-taught geologist, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after four houses were uncovered, work was abandoned in 1868.
The site remained undisturbed until 1913, when during a single weekend, the site was plundered by a party with shovels who took away an unknown quantity of artifacts.
In 1924, another storm swept away part of one of the houses, and it was determined the site should be secured and properly investigated. The job was given to the University of Edinburgh's Professor V. Gordon Childe, who travelled to Skara Brae for the first time in mid-1927.
The inhabitants of Skara Brae were makers and users of grooved ware, a distinctive style of pottery that had recently appeared in northern Scotland. The houses used earth sheltering: built sunk in the ground, into mounds of prehistoric domestic waste known as middens. This provided the houses with stability and also acted as insulation against Orkney's harsh winter climate. On average, each house measures 40 square metres with a large square room containing a stone hearth used for heating and cooking.
Given the number of homes, it seems likely that no more than fifty people lived in Skara Brae at any given time.The dwellings contain several stone-built pieces of furniture, including cupboards, dressers, seats, and storage boxes. Each dwelling was entered through a low doorway with a stone slab door which could be shut by a bar made of bone that slid in bar-holes cut in the stone door jambs.
Several dwellings offered a small connected antechamber, offering access to a partially covered stone drain leading away from the village. It is suggested that these chambers served as indoor privies.
The site provided the earliest known record of the human flea (Pulex irritans) in Europe.
The Grooved Ware People who built Skara Brae were primarily pastoralists who raised cattle, pig and sheep. Childe originally believed that the inhabitants did not farm, but excavations in 1972 unearthed seed grains from a midden suggesting that barley was cultivated. Fish bones and shells are common in the midden indicating that dwellers ate seafood. Limpet shells are standard and may have been fish bait that was kept in stone boxes in the homes. The boxes were formed from thin slabs with joints carefully sealed with clay to render them waterproof.
A number of enigmatic carved stone balls have been found at the site and some are on display in the museum. Similar objects have been found throughout northern Scotland.
The Heart of Neolithic Orkney was inscribed as a World Heritage site in December 1999. In addition to Skara Brae the site includes Maeshowe, the Ring of Brodgar, the Standing Stones of Stenness and other nearby sites.
More information: Historic Environment Scotland
that are imputed to the deliberate workings of intelligence.
If I find a rock chipped in such a way as to give it a sharp edge,
and the discovery is made in a cave,
I am seduced into ascribing this to tool use by distant,
fetid and furry ancestors.
Seth Shostak
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