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from the early stages. Part of the reason is probably the later growth of thick layers of moss which
have buried early field systems. In Ireland a whole patchwork of fields has been discovered at
Ceidi, near Ballycastle, County Mayo in the north-west, lying under several feet of peat and visible
only when this layer was cleared away. Even the megaliths suffered from the accumulation of moss
and peat. The stone circle at Callanish on Lewis, where the stones reach nearly 5 metres in height,
had been almost swallowed up by the peat before it was excavated in the nineteenth century. Only
the tips of the tallest stones protruded above the peat.
Covering of a different kind obscured what, in my opinion, is the most remarkable
archaeological site in the whole of the Isles. The settlement at Skara Brae in Orkney does not have
the grandeur of Callanish or Stonehenge. It is altogether more domestic. Following a violent storm
in the 1850s, the sand dunes which back on to the beach in the Bay of Skaill, on the west coast of
the largest island, were stripped back to reveal the walls of houses. Unlike today, when such a
discovery would precipitate an immediate excavation, nothing much was done either to excavate or
even to protect the site until the early years of the twentieth century. Hidden beneath the sand was a
small group of interconnecting stone houses, each about 5 metres in diameter and complete with
stone beds, stone dressers, even waterproofed stone basins sunk into the floor to keep live lobsters
and to soften limpet flesh for fishing bait.
That Skara Brae is still standing and not strewn about the countryside has a lot to do with the
remarkable rock found all over Orkney and Caithness. The sandstone comes in flat slabs, about 5–
10 centimetres thick. Even without mortar, anything built with Orkney flagstones is not going to fall
down. Ruined buildings, 100 years old, which are a not uncommon sight all over rural Scotland,
are still standing. Their roof timbers have decayed and collapsed, but the walls of flagstone houses
are as solid as ever. Metre-square flagstones, split even thinner, are even used as roof tiles or stuck
upright in the ground as fencing.
The charm of Skara Brae is in its ordinariness. I have to admit that, though I enjoy standing in
awe amidst the great monuments from the past, I feel strangely detached from them. But at Skara
Brae I really can imagine people living there, coming in from the wind to the warm, snug interiors,
recounting, in whatever tongue, the events of the day. The beach at Skaill just next to Skara Brae is
strewn with broken flagstones and when I was there, during the school summer holidays, families
were playing on the beach. But instead of building sandcastles – and there is plenty of good sand –
the children were constructing their own miniature stone circles. These rocks are just asking to be
stood upright, and that’s exactly what has happened all over Orkney. The Ring of Brodgar, about 5
miles inland from Skara Brae, was originally a circle of sixty stones 7 metres high and 100 metres
across. Twenty-one remain in position. A mile in one direction is the stone circle of Bookan, while
the same distance in the other direction is another, Stenness, and half a mile further lies the
astonishing passage tomb of Maes Howe. Like the tomb at Newgrange on the Boyne, Maes Howe
is aligned so that the sun shines along the low passage at the winter solstice and floods the inner
chamber with light. Once again, the wonderful building quality of the rock makes Maes Howe
appear much younger than its 5,000 years, the stone slabs neatly laid and corbelled at the top to
form a roof. These are only the major structures. All around are burial mounds, many not yet
excavated, single standing stones and other remnants of a vibrant ritual past.
The sheer scale of the Orkney megalithic monuments, and the equivalents in Ireland and all
along the Atlantic coast, is a testament to the economic effects of agriculture. However like us they