Ness of Brodgar: Elements of architecture

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 435

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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. While the widely anticipated site report is still a few years away, in the interim the Ness team is putting together a series of short publications that delve into some of the aspects of the site that have most captured their imaginations. The first was the accompanying book to the exhibition Ness of Brodgar: past, present, and future that ran at Orkney Museum in the summer of 2024 (see CA 413). Now, the second volume in the series has been published, which delves into the fabric of the buildings, picking out various aspects of their architecture that illustrate the Ness’s importance and uniqueness. With the team stressing that this is by no means the ‘final word’ on the topic, this wonderfully detailed book whets the appetite for future publications about the Ness.

REVIEW KK

Ness of Brodgar: Elements of architecture
Mark Edmonds
Think Digital Books Ltd, £20
ISBN 978-0993275784