SKARA BRAE:

Orkney, 11 miles

north-west of Kirkwall).

During the middle of the last century, when the wind shifted the dunes at Skara Brae, stone houses with stone furniture were revealed under the sand. Excavations and fresh storms have revealed a perfectly preserved Stone Age village, 4,000 years old.

Contrary to what might be expected, the village was extremely well organised. Paved paths linked the houses, and a sewer collected the dirty water piped from the dwellings.

All the structures, made from un-mortared stone, have been well protected by the sand dunes, with the exception of the roofs, which have disappeared. The village consisted of a group of seven or eight houses all of the same design: one room with rounded corners, a very low entrance (3 ft 10 in.) which could be closed by means of a large flat stone, and a hearth in the middle, where peat ashes were found. There was no wood on the island and the various vessels un-earthed were made from stone, whales' vertebrae and pottery. Colour pigments, no doubt used in body painting, were in bowls made from

the vertebrae of marine animals. The inhabitants, who were sheep breeders, lived on milk, meat, fish, shellfish and whatever they could catch by hunting. One house, isolated from the others, seems to have served as a workshop where flint was shaped into tools and weapons. What is unclear is why people capable of building such houses came to settle on such a remote island in a very severe climate, while Europe offered so many more hospitable places. It seems as if the inhabitants fled there suddenly, because of some threat.

The world’s last mysteries - Readers Digest - 1978