Skara Brae was probably built about five thousand years ago. Mounds of rubbish, or middens, packed the exterior walls to insulate the houses from the freezing winters and ensure stability against the bitter winds that tore across the bleak terrain
A Sophisticated Housing System at Skara Brae
Arranged in groups of six, each house was 430 feet square and had a thatched roof. Each was linked to a shared drainage system and was connected by covered passageways that enabled the inhabitants to move from one dwelling to the next without going outside
Since stone was the only freely available material at Skara Brae, it went to make furniture, storage boxes and shelves which held, among other possessions, the flat-based grooved-ware pottery that was made and used by the villagers
The Hearth, Social Centre of Homes in Skara Brae
From the stone hearth, a fire spread warmth through the rooms. At night and particularly in the prolonged and freezing northern winters, family and friends would gather round the fire, to cook and eat food, gossip, exchange news, sing songs, tell tales, or simply enjoy the company after a hard day’s work
It may have been a smoky experience. Unless houses had holes in the roof to allow the smoke to escape, it inevitably spread around the room in clouds, eventually finding an exit through the front door
Storing Tools and Possessions
The main room featured stone dressers where people kept their most important possessions, including luxury goods fashioned by specialist craftsmen, such as bone-bead necklaces and pendants or polished jadeite axes
Smaller rooms were used as workshops where stone, bone or deer antlers were used to make simple tools, like needles and fastenings. Other rooms were used for storage and one served as a toilet: this had a drain leading to a communal sewer running under the main passageway of the village. A tank lined with clay provided water for each house
Skara Brae, A Prosperous Farming Community
The Skara Brae villagers were prosperous farmers. They were self-sufficient, with plenty of pasture for sheep and cattle, fertile fields for growing barley and wheat and copious catches of fish and shellfish from the sea. The villagers also possessed a strong sense of community, for they shared the tasks of obtaining food
Their diet was plentiful, comprising large quantities of meat and fish, supplemented by wheat and barley from their own fields. More meat and skins for clothing and coverings were obtained from the red deer and wild boar the villagers hunted
Every now and again, a whale became beached and afforded a wealth of extra supplies - meat, oil, skin or whalebone for strengthening roofs or providing fastenings for clothes and sewing needles
The End of Skara Brae and Its Way of Life
Archaeologists have reckoned that Skara Brae lasted for some six hundred years before it was abandoned. Apparently, Skara Brae’s co operative social set up, so much before its time, was not the only system at work in the Orkneys.
Another settlement, Barnhouse, discovered on Sandwick Island in 1984, contained traces of superior living conditions, such as might be enjoyed by an important tribal leader and his relatives
Most likely, the influence of an all-powerful ruler or family obliged the villagers of Skara Brae to yield to their power. This doubtless meant abandoning their lifestyle and independence and moving away to join other larger communities
Nature Returns to Skara Brae
In time, Nature moved in to reclaim the village. Wind, sand and erosion wiped away all signs that Skara Brae had ever been there until, some 3,500 years later, one of Orkney’s notorious storms brought it to light once more
Sources
Clarke, D.V., Fulton, Bil and Gillespie, Ross, Skara Brae Northern Europe’s Best Preserved Neolithic Village (Edinburgh, Scotland: Historic Scotland Publishers, 2000). ISBN-10: 1900168979/ ISBN-13: 978-1900168977
Childe, V. Gordon, Skara Brae (London, UK: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) 1983) ISBN-10: 0114917558/ ISBN-13: 978-0114917555
Website: Skara Brae Feature Page on Undiscovered Scotland
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