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Quanterness Chambered Cairn
Quanterness chambered cairn is a Neolithic burial monument located on Mainland, Orkney in Scotland. An Iron Age roundhouse built into the cairn was discovered during excavation in the early 1970s. The dwelling was constructed around 700 BC. Also found during excavation, were the remains of 157 people, pottery remnants and other artefacts. Historic Environment Scotland established the site as a scheduled monument in 1929. Location Quanterness chambered cairn is located on Mainland, Orkney in Scotland. It sits at the base of the north side of Wideford Hill and is situated north-east of the Wideford Hill chambered cairn. The site overlooks the North Isles. It is one of three chambered cairns found between the towns of Kirkwall and Finstown. The tomb is on private property and is not accessible to the public. Description The cairn is now a large grass-covered mound, in diameter and in height. The mound covers a Neolithic burial monument and the remains of an Iron Age rou ...
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Mainland, Orkney
The Mainland, also known as Hrossey and Pomona, is the main island of Orkney, Scotland. Both of Orkney's burghs, Kirkwall and Stromness, lie on the island, which is also the heart of Orkney's ferry and air connections. Seventy-five per cent of Orkney's population live on the island, which is more densely populated than the other islands of the archipelago. The lengthy history of the island's occupation has provided numerous important archaeological sites and the sandstone bedrock provides a platform for fertile farmland. There is an abundance of wildlife, especially seabirds. Etymology The name Mainland is a corruption of the Old Norse . Formerly the island was also known as meaning 'horse island'. The island is sometimes referred to as ''Pomona'' (or ''Pomonia''), a name that stems from a 16th-century mis-translation by George Buchanan.Buchanan, George (1582''Rerum Scoticarum Historia: The First Book''The University of California, Irvine. Revised 8 March 2003. Retrieved 4 Octo ...
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George Barry (author)
George Barry (1748–1805) was a Scottish minister, the author of a ''History of the Orkney Islands''. Life Barry was a native of Berwickshire. He studied at the University of Edinburgh. After receiving a licence as a preacher from the Edinburgh presbytery of the Church of Scotland, he continued to act as tutor in a gentleman's family until in 1782 he obtained a presentation to the second charge of Kirkwall. The dislike of a portion of the congregation to his preaching resulted before long in the formation of a Secession congregation in the parish. In 1793 he was translated to Shapinsay. He received in 1804 the degree of D.D. from the university of Edinburgh. Works Shortly before his death at Shapinsay on 11 May 1805 he published a ''History of the Orkney Islands, including a view of the ancient and modern inhabitants, their monuments of antiquity, their natural history, the present state of their agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, and the means of their improvement.'' A sec ...
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Iron Age Scotland
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in front of oxygen (32.1% and 30.1%, respectively), forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust. In its metallic state, iron is rare in the Earth's crust, limited mainly to deposition by meteorites. Iron ores, by contrast, are among the most abundant in the Earth's crust, although extracting usable metal from them requires kilns or furnaces capable of reaching or higher, about higher than that required to smelt copper. Humans started to master that process in Eurasia during the 2nd millennium BCE and the use of iron tools and weapons began to displace copper alloys, in some regions, only around 1200 BCE. That event is considered the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. In th ...
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Neolithic Scotland
Archaeology and geology continue to reveal the secrets of prehistoric Scotland, uncovering a complex past before the Romans brought Scotland into the scope of recorded history. Successive human cultures tended to be spread across Europe or further afield, but focusing on this particular geographical area sheds light on the origin of the widespread remains and monuments in Scotland, and on the background to the history of Scotland. The extent of open countryside untouched by intensive farming, together with past availability of stone rather than timber, has given Scotland a wealth of accessible sites where the ancient past can be seen. The remote prehistory of Scotland Scotland is geologically alien to Europe, comprising a sliver of the ancient continent of Laurentia (which later formed the bulk of North America). During the Cambrian period the crustal region which became Scotland formed part of the continental shelf of Laurentia, then still south of the equator. Laurentia was ...
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Scheduled Ancient Monuments In Orkney
A schedule or a timetable, as a basic time-management tool, consists of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place, or of a sequence of events in the chronological order in which such things are intended to take place. The process of creating a schedule — deciding how to order these tasks and how to commit resources between the variety of possible tasks — is called scheduling,Ofer Zwikael, John Smyrk, ''Project Management for the Creation of Organisational Value'' (2011), p. 196: "The process is called scheduling, the output from which is a timetable of some form". and a person responsible for making a particular schedule may be called a scheduler. Making and following schedules is an ancient human activity. Some scenarios associate this kind of planning with learning life skills. Schedules are necessary, or at least useful, in situations where individuals need to know what time they must be at a specific location to receive a ...
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Chambered Cairns In Scotland
Chambered is an adjective related to the word chamber. It may refer to: * Chambered body, an element of some electric guitars * Chambered cairn or Chambered long barrow, types of megalithic burial monument * Chambered nautilus (''Nautilus pompilius''), the best-known species of nautilus * Chambered stinkhorn (''Lysurus periphragmoides''), a species of fungus * Three chambered heart or Four chambered heart, types of hearts * The Four-Chambered Heart, a 1950 autobiographical novel See also * Camerata (other) Camerata, a dormitory or a comrade in Italian or an adjective meaning ''chambered'' in Latin, may refer to: Music * Camerata (music), a small chamber orchestra or choir * Camerata Bariloche, an Argentine chamber music ensemble founded in 1977 * Fl ...
, the Latin equivalent of the word {{disambiguation ...
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Historic Scotland Properties In Orkney
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. History is not complete and still has debatable mysteries. History is also an academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the nature of history as an end in itself, as well as its usefulness to give perspective on the problems of the p ...
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Cuween Hill Chambered Cairn
Cuween Hill Chambered Cairn () is a Neolithic chambered cairn on Mainland, the main island of Orkney, Scotland, about 6 miles west of Kirkwall. It dates to around 3,000 BCE, and is similar in design to Maeshowe, but on a smaller scale. It was constructed by Neolithic farmers as a burial place. The cairn was excavated in 1901 and the remains of several humans and dogs were found, including skulls. In the 1990s, excavations uncovered the remains of a small Neolithic settlement at Stonehall, at the foot of Cuween Hill, and in 2019 images of a forensic model of one of the dog skulls were published. Description The entry to the tomb is down a narrow passage, partly open to the sky. The main chamber, built on the bedrock, stands well over 2 meters high,Cuween Hill Chambered Cairn< ...
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Vinquoy Chambered Cairn
Vinquoy chambered cairn () is a Neolithic chambered cairn located on the island of Eday, in Orkney, Scotland. The tomb probably dates to the early third millennium BC, and is similar in design to Maeshowe Neolithic tomb found on Mainland Orkney. Historic Environment Scotland established the site as a scheduled monument in 1936. Description Vinquoy chambered cairn is a restored Maeshowe-type Neolithic tomb on the island of Eday in Orkney, Scotland. The monument was built on the highest point in the island, on Vinquoy Hill on the North side of Eday, overlooking Calf Sound. The tomb is approximately in diameter with a height of , and was constructed with red sandstone. It has a entrance passage leading to a central chamber with four small side-cells. The chambered cairn is partly below ground, carved into the hill. The central chamber originally had a corbelled roof. The site is open to the public and is part of the Eday Heritage Trail. History The tomb was first excavated in 18 ...
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Taversöe Tuick
Taversöe Tuick (or Taversoe Tuick) is a Neolithic burial cairn on Rousay, Orkney, Scotland, thought to date from between 4000 and 2500 BCE. The monument includes a rare example of a double-tiered chamber, an upper chamber approached via a passageway and a lower subterranean chamber, originally separate, which can now be reached via a modern ladder from the upper chamber. It is unknown why the chambers were stacked in this way. The monument includes a third miniature chamber slightly downhill of the lower chamber, and linked to it by a small channel which has sometimes been called a 'drain' although that is not believed to be its true purpose. In 1898 excavations uncovered part of the upper chamber, and access was gained to the intact lower chamber. The site was fully excavated in 1937, at which time the upper chamber was covered with a domed roof. Finds included several skeletons, cremated bone, bowls, a mace-head, a flint arrowhead and scrapers, and shale disc beads. The site ...
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Hammerstone
In archaeology, a hammerstone is a hard cobble used to strike off lithic flakes from a lump of tool stone during the process of lithic reduction. The hammerstone is a rather universal stone tool which appeared early in most regions of the world including Europe, India and North America. This technology was of major importance to prehistoric cultures before the age of metalworking. Materials A hammerstone is made of a material such as sandstone, limestone or quartzite, is often ovoid in shape (to fit the human hand better), and develops telltale battering marks on one or both ends. In archaeological recovery, hammerstones are often found in association with other stone tool artifacts, debitage and/or objects of the hammer such as ore. The modern use of hammerstones is now mostly limited to flintknappers and others who wish to develop a better understanding of how stone tools were made. Usage Hammerstones are or were used to produce flakes and hand axes as well as ...
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Grooved Ware
Grooved ware is the name given to a pottery style of the British Neolithic. Its manufacturers are sometimes known as the Grooved ware people. Unlike the later Beaker ware, Grooved culture was not an import from the continent but seems to have developed in Orkney, early in the 3rd millennium BC, and was soon adopted in Britain and Ireland.Richard Bradley ''The prehistory of Britain and Ireland,'' Cambridge University Press, 2007, , p. 134. The diagnostic shape for the style is a flat-bottomed pot with straight sides sloping outwards and grooved decoration around the top. Beyond this the pottery comes in many varieties, some with complex geometric decorations others with applique bands added. The latter has led some archaeologists to argue that the style is a skeuomorph and is derived from wicker basketry. Grooved ware pots excavated at Balfarg in Fife have been chemically analysed to determine their contents. It appears that some of the vessels there may have been used to hold ...
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