Broch of Gurness in Orkney in Northern Scotland (von Scott K Marshall - Adobe Stock)
I pull my hood down over my winter cap as the drizzle turns into a proper rain, and I’m about to be drookit. Hunched over my trowel in the claggie soil of an excavation, I do wonder, but only for a moment, why I chose to study archaeology in Orkney?
In the evening, after a hot shower, I hang my wet clothes over the radiator. Outside, the sky clears and through the window I watch the sun set over the Kirkwall harbor. A massive cruise ship is departing, taking its disappointed and damp patrons with it. A few hours on a shore excursion could not capture the magic of Orkney. You need time to adjust to the wind and weather, pop out for a pub evening, and explore the way past and present landscapes intertwine.
The Orkney Islands lie north of the Scottish Highlands. 20 of the 70 islands have permanent citizens, with most living at the largest island, Mainland.
Kirkwall is the largest town in Mainland and it’s where I stay when visiting. It feels a bit gray, with the flagstone walkways, stone buildings and chimney stacks puffing smoke into the overcast sky. However, a peedy (small) venture out of town leads to green fields full of sheep, sandy shorelines for fantastic sunny days and a prehistoric legacy even the Vikings found fascinating.
I’m inside the Maeshowe tomb and the tour guide finally points out the etching I’m here to see. I’ve gawked at all the Norse graffiti - Viking runes bragging about conquests, but spotting the small, intricate Maeshowe dragon takes my breath away. The creature is so intricate, it’s easy to imagine the Norse seeing magic in this tomb that was already thousands of years old.
Maeshowe was built during the Neolithic, around 3000 BC. It is the largest of many such chambered cairns, or stone memorial mounds, from the first known culture that permanently settled in Orkney. It is one such burial structure that I am here excavating with the University of the Highlands and Islands.
On my days off, I prefer crawling around in the lesser-known tombs. At Cuween Hill Chambered Cairn, I shimmy on all-fours through the tight 5-meter-long entrance passage into the eerie central chamber. My flashlight is essential to illuminate the side chambers where the remains of both humans and dogs were found.
My next sunny day trip finds me hiking from Kirkwall up and over Wideford Hill, enjoying the view south across the Scapa Flow to the islands of South Ronaldsay and Hoy. My boots are soaked walking through the heather-covered moorland and peat bog to the Wideford Chambered Cairn. This tomb has a rooftop sliding metal door and a ladder extending down into the dark interior. After wriggling into the side chambers, I return to the surface, shut the door and lay on the warm grassy roof imagining a Neolithic village down below.
Back at the archaeology dig, it is cold and wet. Orcadian weather is notoriously fickle and changeable. It’s August, but I’m forever wearing my waterproofs and woolens while scraping my trowel in a damp trench. My last project trip was during an unexpectedly pleasant and warm week in March (it snowed the day after I left).
There are lots of souterrains (subterranean structures) throughout Orkney, meaning that you can still experience Orkney magic on a dreary day. You can visit most of them anytime – during the 18 hours of summer daylight, or in the middle of a winter’s night. Bring a flashlight. All have been cleared of any archeological artifacts or remains.
My favorite day out finds me taking the car ferry from Tingwall to the island of Rousay where I drive on the southern road, stopping along way to hike up to four chambered cairns. It’s a long slog downhill to the coastal site of Midhowe. Here, sometime around 3500 B.C., the massive Midhowe Chambered Cairn was built with upright stone labs separating 12 stalls. I enter the site which lies under a large roof and walk along the raised walkway to peer down into the long central chamber of this huge burial site.
Graves were not the only massive stone structures built during the Neolithic in Orkney. The earliest Orcadians were also adept at creating megalithic (large stone) structures for daily life.
Visiting Skara Brae, part of the UNESCO Heritage sites called the “Heart of Neolithic Orkney,” is a highlight of my visit. I begin by walking through the recreated home where I can see and feel a bit of daily life 5,000 years ago. I take the path to the shoreline where the village remnants are on display. From the raised walkway I look down into the intricate stone homes and connecting passageways.
While today Orkney seems like it is a remote island on the periphery, there is evidence that Neolithic people saw this landscape differently. Many ancient technologies and ideas originated in Orkney making it a center of prehistoric culture.
Orkney is where the first stone circles were built, an idea that would be copied for generations as people traveled to and from this cultural epicenter, eventually influencing the builders of Stonehenge 1,000 years later. At the Ring of Brodgar I spend an hour walking around the outside of the henge and its circle of standing stones. It is massive, but still only makes up a portion of the larger complex of settlements, massive structures, tombs and stone circles, much of which predates the Egyptian pyramids.
I spend all day at ‘the Ness,’ where I can roam inside some of the sites like the houses of the Barnhouse Settlement and the adjacent Stones of Stenness, the oldest standing stone circle in the British Isles. I place my hand on the largest stane in the circle. Sadly, I’m not transported back in time to find a fiery man in a kilt. But I am touching prehistory, and for a moment I connect with a landscape shared by people for thousands of years.
On my final days at the archaeology dig, we laboriously back-fill and close the excavation site. Like the ancestors who built this tomb and the Vikings who settled the area, we also leave our mark –carving a small stone (with a date for future archaeologists) and burying it in a side chamber, becoming part of a long story that began way back in the Neolithic.
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