'Discovery of a lifetime': Stone Age temple found in Orkney is 800 years older than Stonehenge...

Daily Mail ^ | 2nd January 2012 | Ted Thornhill

[SunkenCiv]

The site, known as the Ness of Brodgar, was investigated by BBC2 documentary A History of Ancient Britain, with presenter Neil Oliver describing it as 'the discovery of a lifetime'.

So far the remains of 14 Stone Age buildings have been excavated, but thermal geophysics technology has revealed that there are 100 altogether, forming a kind of temple precinct.

Until now Stonehenge was considered to have been the centre of Neolithic culture, but that title may now go to the Orkney site, which contains Britain's earliest known wall paintings.

Oliver said: 'The excavation of a vast network of buildings on Orkney is allowing us to recreate an entire Stone Age world.

'It's opening a window onto the mysteries of Neolithic religion.'

Experts believe that the site will give us insights into what Neolithic people believed about the world and the universe.

Nick Card, an archaeologist from the University of the Highlands and Islands, said: 'It's an archaeologist's dream site. The excitement of the site never fades.

'This site is a one-off.'

Professor Mark Edmonds from the University of York, meanwhile, describes the excavation as 'a site of international importance'.

Some parts of the temple are 800 years older than Stonehenge, which lies 500 miles to the south in Wiltshire.

The site is very close to the Ring of Brodgar stone circle and the standing stones of Stenness and is surrounded by a wall believed to have been 10-feet high.

Archaeologists found red zigzag lines on some of the buildings' inner walls that they believe is Stone Age art -- the oldest ever found.

So far only around 10 per cent of the site has been examined -- and it could take decades to uncover and analyse everything there.

[mamelukesabre]

Why are they always jumping to the conclusion that these places like stone henge are temples? They look like forts to me.

[muawiyah]

There were no Germans ~ that came much later.

This was simply a settlement created by the descendants of people who'd holed up in the Western Refugia South of the Pyranees in Spain.

In fact, at this time the people who became the Celts were still pretty much on the Continent and hadn't reached Britain, but there were already people there. The Germans do not achieve a separate identity until they rebel against their Celtic overlords along the Danube. That's about 1000 BC.

Here's something for you to keep in mind. Ancient peoples can be identified by culture (pots, designs, etc.), DNA (taken from bone fragments), or language.

You get back a few thousand years everybody is a stone ager ~ or Paleolithic hunter/gatherer who makes his arrowheads and other stone tools in a certain pattern.

Then a little further toward our time they are making baskets and pottery that manage to leave behind impressions or shards. Again, that's culture.

Finally, we come to the age of writing ~ which starts in Sumer and spreads rapidly ~ and that gives us history and language.

This village in the Orkneys is pretty old ~ but not as old as some in Ukraine where people settled who'd been protected from the ice in yet another refugia.

There are places even older than those in the Middle East.

What is exciting here is that civilization in Britain appears to have been an indigenous product and wasn't shipped in by foreigners.

[bigheadfred]

Maybe they grouped up in the coldest months to conserve resources.

[mamelukesabre]

I’ve heard the term “beaker folk”...is that what these people were?

[Verginius Rufus]

I visited the main island of the Orkneys many years ago--in midsummer so it was mild weather but stayed light very late (it's almost 60 degrees north, so not sure it got really dark at all). I went there to see the church of St. Magnus, one of the Orkney earls who was murdered by a cousin and then declared a martyr. At that time I thought that a Scots-Irish family I am descended from was descended from the killer, but that now seems unlikely.

There is a medieval Icelandic saga about the earls of Orkney, available in English translation (the Orkneyinga Saga)--it was Norse for much of the Middle Ages.

[muawiyah]

I think this is just pre-bronze age ~ but I’d have to see some expert identify the culture.

[Cicero]

We visited Fingal’s Cave, and the Monastery on Iona from which much of Europe was Christianized. We were there at the vernal equinox, and the sun went below the horizon for about half an hour, but it never really got dark.

[BenLurkin]

“UNESCO World Heritage Site”

Evey time I hear that I want to truck over there with a sledge hammer and spray paint.

[muawiyah]

The Highland Scots and the Coastal Scandinavians are a very mixed population. Today the Icelanders are estimated to have about 90% Irish and 10% Norse ancestry.

I've seen 50/50 estimates for the highlanders and the non-Sami Norwegians called "Norse".

However, just about 100% of their ancestors came from the Westernmost Ice Age Refugia ~ whether they are Sa'ami, Norse, Celt, or whatever.

You find a slightly different population in Southern Europe, and there's a third group mixed in in Eastern Europe but pretty much the same folks descended from the same folks in the Refugia.

As you move East you start running into populations that left the Refugia and traveled North and went South of the residual ice cap in Scandinavia. They moved East and then South. The Sa'ami differ by going North of the residual ice all the way around the Arctic coast into the Kola peninsula. They also went to America, North Africa, and even tropical Africa. Yet others penetrated all the way to East Asia (the Yakuts have the X factor genes)

The Japanese ruling caste since 600 AD or thereabouts are descended from Yakuts invaders who arrived on the heels of the climate anomaly that shut down China's civilization for the next 300 years.

The Orkneys are different. The native population AFTER the Sa'ami moved through there going North about 12500 BC, but BEFORE the Norse arrived in 1 AD from wherever primitive Germans came from seems to be unrelated to both groups until the arrival of Vikings in about 800 or 900 AD.

That doesn't mean THAT group didn't spread its genes around among the others.

I don't think they've done enough DNA research on the problem to give us all the answers needed ~ first, they've gotta' find the Orkney Islanders. They've been moving out of there in recent decades.

[Dryman]

linky?

[SunkenCiv]

:’) That was the approach recommended by the Red Queen.

[Straight Vermonter]

I have had the same thought many times. Life was undoubtedly tough and most of their energy was probably spent on practical matters.

[dog breath]

There is usually some genetic material absorbed from earlier populations for invaders don't always bring all that many women with them. Attractive women were a valuable as a commodity in most historical societies. You see that even in North America where Indian tribes were killing the warriors of their enemy but capturing the women as a prize. There seems to be an endless assortment of peoples tracking across Europe for various reasons but whether anybody is related to the folks who built these ruins isn't as important as that they were building things like this in early Europe. Thanks for posting this.

[Verginius Rufus]

I assume you meant the summer solstice--at the vernal equinox there are 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night.

Scotland's latitudes are roughly equivalent to the Alaska panhandle's.

[Verginius Rufus]

What I remember from a course I took as an undergraduate is that they believe that the Norse colonizers of Iceland brought along their Celtic slave women. That would explain the DNA, and the fact that the language of Iceland is descended from Old Norse (not Gaelic).

[Verginius Rufus]

Cabeza de Vaca mentions an Indian tribe in Texas which killed all of its girl babies at birth, and acquired wives from other tribes.

[garjog]

[garjog]

Watch the film Teenage Caveman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vew9y0FAP0&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLF581CAC3894703A7

[Wild Berry]

The temp of that island may have been quite different then. Greenland used to be green. I am sure Orkney was warm once. They may have lived on a warmer Orkney than what we know today.

[dog breath]

I had an acquaintance who was from the Faroes, which was settled by the Norse, they considered themselves part Irish due to the Irish women the Norse brought with them. The silent ancient history of women in this world is a tale that is yet to be told through genetics.