The Ness of Brodgar in Orkney is home to an unprecedented complex of 5,000-year-old buildings. Ongoing analysis is illuminating their form and function, as Carly Hilts reports.
With excavation at the Ness of Brodgar – one of the largest Neolithic sites known in north-west Europe – having finished in August 2024, after a remarkable 20 years of fieldwork, the long process of post-excavation analysis has now commenced.…
There are many great archaeological events coming up over the next few months, from conferences and lectures to exhibitions and festivals. If you would prefer to enjoy history and heritage at home, though, there are lots of exciting offerings and resources to choose from, including digitised museum collections, virtual site tours, new documentaries, and educational activities. Amy Brunskill has put together a summary of some of the options available.
REVIEW BY CH The Ness of Brodgar in Orkney is home to a remarkable range of Neolithic buildings, uncovered over the last 20 years. We reviewed the excavation team’s guidebook in 2018 (CA 338) but since then the story has…
Since the first hints of Neolithic masonry emerged at the Ness of Brodgar in 2003, two decades of excavations have uncovered an extraordinary complex of monumental stone buildings dating back 5,000 years. The site continues to revolutionise our understanding of this period of prehistory both in Orkney and further afield, and last summer Carly Hilts visited the site and spoke to Nick Card to find out the latest news from the Ness.
These are the first examples of wood surviving in situ to be found at the Ness.
'The analysis has much wider implications in the study of Neolithic ceramics, but we will need many more fingerprint examples before any firm conclusions can be drawn.’
Further analysis of the print will contribute to ongoing research into the identification of archaeological fingerprints, and may reveal more details of the anonymous potter thanks to known variations in fingerprint patterns based on sex and age.