Archaeologists and pagans alike glory in the Brodgar complex
Archaeologists are notoriously nervous of attributing ritual significance to anything (the old joke used to be [ed.: Used to be?] that if you found an artefact and couldn’t identify it, it had to have ritual significance), yet they still like to do so whenever possible. I used to work on a site in the mid-1980s – a hill fort in Gloucestershire – where items of potential religious note occasionally turned up (a horse skull buried at the entrance, for example) and this was always cause for some excitement, and also some gnashing of teeth at the prospect of other people who weren’t archaeologists getting excited about it (“And now I suppose we’ll have druids turning up”).
The Brodgar complex has, however, got everyone excited. It ticks all the boxes that make archaeologists, other academics, lay historians and pagans jump up and down. Its age is significant: it’s around 800 years older than Stonehenge (although lately, having had to do some research into ancient Britain, I’ve been exercised by just how widely dates for sites vary, so perhaps some caution is called for). Pottery found at Stonehenge apparently originated in Orkney, or was modelled on pottery that did.
Blogged on this thing once before, but it’s starting to look rather more important than I gave it credit earlier.
Yes, this really is very big and very impressive. In age as well as all the rest, at least in feeling so to say the “mother of Stonehenge”.
Again see http://www.orkneyjar.com/archaeology/nessofbrodgar/ . On the right side there, you will find links for at least a week of reading [and pictures], that big this all is! There is much more than just the buildings on excavation on the ness itself, though even that is impressive enough.
I expect the map of the buildings etcetera to be updated by the start of the 2012 excavation, with results of that of past summer. So keep an eye on this site especially in june-july?
Comment by Toos — February 2, 2012 @ 5:44 pm
Just stumbled over another one about this: http://prehistoricarch.blogspot.com/2012/01/stonehenge-precursor-found-island.html [from and with link to an article in National Geographic with nice overview picture of the 2011?-excavation].
Comment by Toos — February 14, 2012 @ 5:11 pm