In 1850, a storm blew away a sand dune on a windswept bluff in the North Atlantic and revealed an intact Neolithic village, where farmers and cattle herders once lived.
The village of Skara-Brae is 5,000 years old (3200 BCE) – centuries older than the Pyramids of Egypt.
The ten houses grouped together were inhabited, approximately, between 3100 and 2500 BC. C.
Some of the earliest known and well-preserved furniture in Europe comes from the Neolithic village at Skara Brae
The Neolithic village of Skara Brae in the Bay of Skaill, Orkney |
Hearths in the homes show us that the houses were warmed by fire. The houses also had a stone slab door which could be locked “by a bar made of bone that slid in bar-holes cut in the stone door jambs.” (Professor V. Gordon Childe, 1927)
The Neolithic village of Skara Brae in the Bay of Skaill, Orkney |
There existed a basic sewer system, with "toilets" and drains in each house, with water to flush waste into a drain and out into the ocean.
Carved stone balls (petrospheres) found at Skara Brae on Orkney, date from 2900 - 2600 BCE.
The Neolithic village of Skara Brae in the Bay of Skaill, Orkney |
The Neolithic village of Skara Brae in the Bay of Skaill, Orkney |
The nearby Ring of Brodgar, a Neolithic stone circle that dates back to the same period as Skara Brae, Orkney |
The nearby Ring of Brodgar, a Neolithic stone circle that dates back to the same period as Skara Brae, Orkney |
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