Ness of Brodgar

For a hymn to the (voluptuous) Earth-mother, the matrix of The Ringstone is well 'ard. It is fine-grained igneous granite. Crude as the carving is, it is still clear after 5000 winters of weather. We have no idea whether and when the carved face was covered against the elements but we do know that they were buried in a wall (and so protected) for ~200 years up until 2007. With sedimentary rocks like limestone and sandstone it is fatal to be insouciant about the effects of weathering. Years ago we heard a story about how some neolithic works of such softer stone had been dug up and relocated to the edge of a municipal car-park in Tullamore? the Midlands - so that they were on display. Within a decade, or two at most, the 000 year old detailing had been done to death by acid rain and drunken urinators; all that remained was blobs.

The Ness of Brodgar was in the news this Summer because it is going under . . . again. This extensive (2.5 ha.) site adjacent to Skara Brae on Mainland Orkney was discovered in 2003 after being farmed and fished past for hundreds of years: ignored because it looked like a big oval hillock. In that year, a large notched stone was turned up by the plough and a geophysical survey showed a rich mess of anomalies suggesting the work of human hand. The following year a team of archaeologists turned up with their shovels and toothbrushes and dug some exploratory trenches to confirm the geophyical imaging.  A complex of walls, middens, buildings, 150,000 cattle bones and fabricated artifacts were revealed. No gold torcs, but for archaeologists it's not about treasure; it's about understanding how people lived and worked and had fun in the neolithic.

Silbury Hill [wch prev] a larger man-made hillock 1,000+ km due South in the middle of England is more-or-less the same age as the works at Brodgar. Crude digs over the last 250 years have made a hames of the archaeological strata and context making it much harder for us moderns to interpret the origins and functions of that massive structure. 

With commendable restraint and humility, it has been decided that Summer 2024 is the last excavation season: every winter more lamination of the top layers of stone occurs. It won't take long to reduce the whole precise structure to soft-focus of weathered rock revealing nothing about the past. Accordingly, this fall, the archaeologists intend to cover up their 2 decades of careful digging and write up their interpretive notes. As they affirm "The long-term survival of the archaeology is paramount. Our duty is to protect the site for future generations, who, armed with new techniques and technology, will be able to pick up where we left off".