There is something about Orkney that inspires great mystery in any visitor. It is an ancient place - situated just a “stone’s throw” north of Scotland - and it boasts a rich history that reaches far...
The Norse sagas are filled with astonishing death scenes. In his book Laughing Shall I Die, Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings , Tom Shippey explains that the defiant Viking attitude to death was...
A new DNA study is shining light on Bronze Age Orkney. The results show how an influx of mostly women affected family traditions and spiritual customs on the island. However, some scientists are...
Around 5300 BC a revolution occurred on Orkney. A group of unnamed astronomers and seafarers dared to sail across one of the most hostile waterways in the world to establish the earliest stone...
Among several finds at a Viking burial site on Papa Westray, Orkney, is “a rare, exciting, and complex artifact” – a Mayback sword in the form of a Pedersen Type D, associated with the 9th century...
Within the rolling green hills of Scotland, slumber thousands of ancient stones bejeweled with mysterious glyphs. Across the proverbial pond, hidden in the great Appalachians of America’s North...
The Neolithic fingerprints of two young male potters have been identified on a 5,000-year-old fragment of clay discovered in Orkney. In April this year The Press and Journal announced that...
Several layers of plastic and geotextile membranes protect the remains of a Neolithic settlement called the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney, Scotland. Large tarps cover the area where the archaeological...
Archaeologists exploring on Orkney, the far-flung archipelago of the north east coast of Scotland, have discovered a settlement that they believe to be older than the world renowned Skara Brae...
Greatly simplified, one of the primary reasons for the decline of the Roman empire was its rapid expansion, and ultimately its vast size became too expensive to manage effectively and it fell to...
Archaeologists in the far north of Scotland have unearthed thousands of seashells from the remains of an Iron Age feast dating back to around the 5 th century AD, including 18,630 sea snail shells...
Archaeologists in Orkney believe they “might” have discovered another 5,000-year-old Neolithic settlement in the Bay of Skaill, beside the world famous Skara Brae. Thought to date to around 3,000 BC...
In 1850, a fierce storm hit the Bay o’ Skaill on the main island of the Orkney island archipelago. In doing so, it ripped grass from a hill, then known as Skerrabra, to reveal the remnants of an...
Maeshowe is a Neolithic chambered cairn and passage grave situated on mainland Orkney , the world-renowned, ancient monument-peppered archipelago located off the north east coast of Scotland...
Archaeologists in Scotland have discovered an extensive ancient Viking waterway cutting right through Orkney’s Mainland island. The Orkney Islands , known for their tall sandstone cliffs and world-...
The colorful threads, strings, yarns, twines, and ropes that wove together the Neolithic world have greatly rotted back to whence they came, leaving archaeologists and anthropologists only grey stone...