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The archaeological site, known as the Ness of Brodgar, covers an area of over 6 acres and consists of the remains of housing, remnants of slate roofs, paved walkways, coloured facades, decorated stone slabs, a massive stone wall with foundations, and a large building described as a Neolithic ‘cathedra’ or ‘palace’, inhabited from at least 3,500 BC to the close of the Neolithic period more than a millennium and a half later.
“Their workmanship was impeccable. The imposing walls they built would have done credit to the Roman centurions who, some 30 centuries later, would erect Hadrian’s Wall in another part of Britain. Cloistered within those walls were dozens of buildings, among them one of the largest roofed structures built in prehistoric northern Europe. It was more than 80ft long and 60ft wide, with walls 13ft thick,” said Roff Smith, author of an article on the Ness of Brodgar to be released in the August edition of National Geographic.
What the Ness is telling us is that this was a much more integrated landscape than anyone ever suspected,” said archaeologist Nick Card, excavation director with the Archaeology Institute at the University of the Highlands and Islands. “All these monuments are inextricably linked in some grand theme we can only guess at. The people who built all this were a far more complex and capable society than has usually been portrayed.” -
Aaron Watson (University of Reading) and sound technician David Keating tested the sound properties of Scotland’s megalithic chambers at Orkney and at Caithness and revealed some startling discoveries. “Tests have now shown that the chambers were built to create sonic effects which include what we call today the Helmholtz Resonance – the sound created when one blows across the top of a glass bottle- and sub-sonic vibrations, which may have altered the states of worshipper’s (moods).” (The Quest for the Celtic Key- MacLeod & Robertson)
originally posted by: beansidhe
a reply to: stormcell
I'm an Aberdonian by birth, and I hear you! There is something about a North East winter which actually gets into your bones. They're a special kind of cold and dark.
This is becoming a seriouly impressive dig as it seems that this was no ordinary settlement, maybe a teaching college, or astronomical observatory, perhaps?
I think it was Caesar who wrote that in his day (50 BC ish) there were over 200 druid colleges in Britain which may already have been ancient.
I know that a lot of Orkney has been sunk over the years, but still you're right, people would have travelled by boat. It makes me wonder who all was coming up, and why?
In the last thirty years there has emerged a growing consensus that Orkney and the far north of Scotland were not an outpost of Neolithic life in Britain. Rather they were the centre and that innovations in pottery and circle building radiated out across the UK from there to such provincial dumps as the Thames Valley and the Salisbury Plain.