SKARA BRAE

If Maeshowe is the Neolithic funerary site par excellence, Skara Brae is certainly its domestic counterpart. A 5000-year-old village of stone-built houses complete with furniture and artefacts, it is ‘an archaeologist’s dream’ (Richards 1991, 24). Now on Mainland Orkney’s west coast (Figure 64), it comprises the remains, in varying degrees of preservation, of over ten stone-built dwellings, with paved passageways running between. The buildings appeared to have been abandoned at the height of their occupation, leaving behind an abundance of worked bone, stone tools, flint and pottery: one of the largest collection of Neolithic artefacts in Britain. The richness of