Britain's ancient capital.

[Anchorman]

Anyone else watch this last night? It was the first in a three parter on BBC 2 - repeated Sunday; dealing with the astounding dig in Orkney. Orkney seems to have slipped under the radar as far as archaeology goes recently, but the stupendous finds at the Ring of Brodgar may make us have to completely rewrite the prehistory of the British Islse.....making Stonehenge, far from central, a late onset peripheral monument in a vast landscape whose capital was the unlikely Brodgar. I need to go back to Orkney.....it's fifteen years since my last trip, and that dig hadn't started then. Anyway, the mini series is definately worth a look, and, judging by last night's show, well put together and free from the dumbing down which sets my teeth on edge.

[Gordon]

Yep - I've been there several times: initially due to work, but when one day a meeting was cancelled I took the opportunity to visit the Ring of Brodgar and was hooked. Been back several times and have been to the like of Maes Howe and Skara Brae, which is just astonishing in reality.

Like you, I'd love to go back.

[Anchorman]

 Maes Howe is superb, as is Skara Brae. However it appears that thsse are only the icing on the cake - the neolithic structures uncovered in the last decade are causing ructions in the archaeology world - and a recent discovery of a house structure in the Stonehenge area which almost mirrors Skara Brae but dates to slightly later, suggests a very rich cultural exchange with Orkney as the central point. I can't wait to read the papers from the journals, once they're published - but as the dig could last another decade, I may have a long wait in store!

[Gordon]

If I ever get to borrow the ACME time machine which, as you no doubt know, involves you being within an invisible bubble so you can observe and listen but not interact in any way, then seeing Skara Brae in occupation would be in my top 5 'must see' historical outings.

[Anchorman]

Although I'd been an archaeology geek for decades (who'd have thunk it?) It was actually a trip to see Viking remains which started my interest in Neolithhic Orkkney. A certain former presenter of 'Mastermindd' with Icelandic blood kind of gave me the bug while he was rector at Glasgow Uni....as well as a pretty good malt and a fish supper.....and the rest was prehistory.

[Anchorman]

For anyone interested, the homepage of the Ness of Brodgar dig is http://www.orkneyjar.com/archaeology/nessofbrodgar/ ...and well worth a look.

[Enki]

Yes, I saw it and loved it. This is one place I'd definitely wish to visit. I was particularly fascinated by the presence of the orkney vole, which isn't present on the UK mainland, and its DNA similarities to those from Belgium. I am often a little skeptical of what I call the romantic input of the experts in archaeology programmes, but this one, so far, seems delightfully free of this aspect.

[SusanDoris]

My visit to Skara Brae was a real highlight in my life some years ago. I've googled a picture of the Ring of brodgar but can't make out what the stones look like. could someone give a rough description, please?

[Anchorman]

Hi, Susan. The ring's been known for centuries, and many of the stones are missing - taken for building work on nearby crofts. There was once a complete circle of sixty monoliths, but more than a third are gone, and a few more have fallen. The holes where the missing stones are can be easilly traced, though. As with Calanais in Lewis, the stones are not of equal hieght, varying from five - eleven feet. Again, as with Calanais, there are larger stones to mark the midsummer and midwinter observations. An avenue of small stones leads from the site.....only recently this was found to connect with the complex of at least fifteen stone buildings, some of them as large as a modern day badminton court, which have been located at the Ness of Brodger - a strip of natural causeway which links the circle to yet another, slightly smaller, circle. Latest carbon dates put the foundation of work at the Ness to around 3700 BC, making it at least nine centuries older than the earliest structures at Stonehenge.

[trippymonkey]

A friend of mine, David, is from the Orkneys & he used to do all this dig-up stuff & has wonderful stories of it all.
We went 'back' there for a visit, he hadn't seen any of his family still living there for over 20 years, even though he talks with his sister Glenda all the time. His dad, who died shortly after we all met, was from there but his mum was from Kent. Quite a combination. Name's Nicholson.

He never told any of them & surprised his sister after so long, in her car rental place there. The look on her face ?!?!!? I got it all on video too !!
He took to me to all those places mentioned here too. Wonderful & ALL still there after millenia COS there's very few trees grow due to bloody bad weather ?!?!? Nearly everything was made in stone so it all survived.

Nick

[Anchorman]

Bloody bad weather? Well, it must've improved since I was last there, then, Nick - 'cos when I was there it was bloody hellish weather........

[trippymonkey]

Bloody bad weather? Well, it must've improved since I was last there, then, Nick - 'cos when I was there it was bloody hellish weather........

Sorry, YES !?!? I DID understate it a little, eh ?!!?LOL

[Hope]

Did Britain exist as a single entity at the time that Skara Brae was at its most powerful?  Did Scotland, even?

[Anchorman]

Did Britain exist as a single entity at the time that Skara Brae was at its most powerful?  Did Scotland, even?

That's more difficult to answer than you might think, Hope.
That some very strong similarities in the buildings, structures and thoughts behind them link Orkney with the Stonhenge culture is now beyond dispute.
That suggests some sort of inter-relationship, a common language and thought process at work in these islands.
Obviously there was no central kingship - that idea would take two and a half thousand years to develop amongst the various Brittonic and Celtic tribes inhabiting these islands.

[Hope]

Saw the second half of the first episode this evening - fascinating.  Jim (and others) is there any explanation why things started so far north?  After all, so much else has started in the south - and beyond (ie in Southern Europe, and even the sub-continent/Middle East) before reaching Britain's shores.  Was there a Scandinavian culture that predated the Vikings by 3500-odd years, perhaps?

By the way, is Neil Oliver the new Tony Robinson?

[Anchorman]

Remember that things were different in prehistory -and right up to early medieval times. We see the land as the best way of travel - but our ancestors were far more centred on the sea. That's why the stone cultures at Dunadd in Argyle, Calanais in Lewis, and the western coast of Ireland, not to mention Orkney, seem linked. THere's evidence of trade between Orkney and what is now Belgium with organic remains dating to c2000 BC. That's probably where the interplay of cultural and protoreligious ideas came from. The similarities extend to Karnak - not the one in Egypt: the one in France! (Mind you, stone circles used for astronomy and presumably religious rites existed well before Orkney - Nabta Playa in the Sudanese desert shows very similar properties to Calanais in Lewis - and that can date from possibly as early as 6000BC.. It seems that neolithic cosmopolitanism was the order of the day.

[torridon]

Yes, I saw it and loved it. This is one place I'd definitely wish to visit. I was particularly fascinated by the presence of the orkney vole, which isn't present on the UK mainland, and its DNA similarities to those from Belgium.

Yes, what a cool piece of detective work that is. I wonder if they can use the principle of genetic clock to come up with an additional dating for the Orkney settlement by measuring the degree of drift from the Belgian population.

As to the reason for the settlement, to my mind the twin factors of remoteness and its apparent religious nature suggests some sort of Pilgrim Fathers scenario.  Maybe the first settlers were escaping persecution on mainland Europe and wanted somewhere remote and safe where they could develop their beliefs and their culture unhindered, which is what the evidence suggests they did.

[Udayana]

Yes, what a cool piece of detective work that is. I wonder if they can use the principle of genetic clock to come up with an additional dating for the Orkney settlement by measuring the degree of drift from the Belgian population.

As to the reason for the settlement, to my mind the twin factors of remoteness and its apparent religious nature suggests some sort of Pilgrim Fathers scenario.  Maybe the first settlers were escaping persecution on mainland Europe and wanted somewhere remote and safe where they could develop their beliefs and their culture unhindered, which is what the evidence suggests they did.

Must say that this seems very speculative. From other research on "celtic" genetics we can be confident that the Scottish coast and islands were populated earliest by spread of hunter gatherers along the coasts to the west and south,  via Brittany, Cornwall, Wales and Ireland prior to the neolithic. When farmers, from other areas of Europe, came in they may well have found it easier to reach and trade with Scots tribes than penetrate England prior to deforestation. - And it would take a good healthy population to create all those monuments not a small exiled group.

[Anchorman]

Exactly. The Orkney settlers were sophisticated, and numerous enough to have created the structures on the Ness. Not only that, but the amount of construction work suggests some central organisation, food distribution, planning, ettc - this culture was, for the North West of Europe, incredibly advanced in its' time.

[torridon]

Well yes, but we need to explain how an entire new religion came to be founded there, and it seems that the Orcadians were either exiles or emigrees from Belgium where there are no such monuments.  Maybe the clue is in the landscape, which is way more dramatic than their Belgian homeland, added to which maybe the Northern Lights would have been a particular inexplicable and novel experience for most Belgians.

[Anchorman]

I don't know which description fits best - I'd doubt 'expelled' would do it - that suggests a highly evolved degree of identity with a particular ethnic or geographical area - and therefore a state system, something which did not evolve till round about 3300 BC in both Egypt and Sumeria. There's no evidence of such a proto-state in Belgium. I'd suggest - tentatively - that a semi nomadic lifestyle made the constant interplay of language, culture and religion probable - as well as mixing with native populations (such as they were). Since numbers were relatively few, it would not take too many incomers to 'genetically mark' a population.

[Anchorman]

      I found tonight's episode fascinating. The foundation deposit of cattle bones was very similar to those found at Nabta Playa in southern Egypt, dating from around 600-4000 BC, another Neolithic ritual site which demands further investigation. In the case of Nabta Playa, though, many have speculated that the cattle culture evolved into veneration of Hathor - the main Egyptian female deity, whose cults lasted three millennia through Pharonic times.

[Anchorman]

The third and final part was tonight - and worth a look on iplayer. Although made for mass market appeal, it managed to remain interesting and not to 'dumbed down'. It reminded me of the old BBC 'Chronicle' strand that gripped my attention in the '70s and '80's. I wish some of the US National Geographic documentary makers were watching - they could have learned something tonight.

[Nearly Sane]

Interesting article on the premise of the show

http://theislandreview.com/content/bbc-neolithic-orkney-neil-oliver-kenneth-brophy-archaeology-stonehenge?rq=Brophy