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Rewriting Neolithic Orkney: The Ness of Brodgar
For centuries the Ness of Brodgar lay silent and undisturbed, jutting out from Orkney between the Loch of Harry and the Loch of Stenness: right at the center of Orkney’s Neolithic landscape. The large whale back mound upon it was thought to be a natural feature, simply part of this wild and untamed landscape. Two standing stones could be seen on the Ness, called in antiquity “the stone of Saturn and Jupiter” and legend claimed that they were part of a druidic “temple or house of the sun.” These were thought to be related to the mighty Ring of Brodgar forming part of an avenue between them and the Stones of Stenness (The Orcadian July 20th of 1901) This meant that archaeologists had largely ignored the Ness, choosing instead to focus either side of it, that is until 2002 when a project began to geophysically survey the whole of Orkney. The survey quickly revealed what the report termed a “dense cluster of sub soil anomalies…indicative of settlement” beneath the soil on the Ness. The results astonished the archaeologists and while they were considering their next move an additional and compelling piece of evidence came to light. During the spring ploughing of 2003, a large flat notched stone came to the surface that was believed to be a burial cist dating to the Bronze Age, which in northern Scotland ran from approximately 2500-800 BC. Fearing that human skeletal remains might have been disturbed, and in accordance with UK law, archaeologists from the Glasgow University Research Division were sent to examine the site and excavate a ‘rescue’ trench to establish whether human remains were in fact present.
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