At home, I don't think or talk about the neolithic very often, but it's top of the mind here in Orkney. The neolithic is the new stone age - the last age before bronze and then iron. It lasted from around 6,000 years ago (4,000 BC) to 4,500 yeas ago (2,500 BC) and during that time period, the Orkadians build a lot of houses, tombs and standing stones that survive today.
The top site in all of Orkney is Skara Brae, a complex of interconnected houses from the neolithic that amazingly preserved. Seeing sites like this in person makes it even easier to imagine that real people, who looked almost identical to us, lived in these houses a very long time ago. On average, they were 2" shorter than us - so you wouldn't even be able to pick them out of a crowd now.
But my favorite part of this site was the re-enactment house they built. It wasn't dug into the ground at all - just a round stone house built to the same plan as the old ones, with a thatch roof and filled with likely pots, furs and even a coracle boat. It was cozy! It was out of the wind and was probably nice and warm.
No comments:
Post a Comment