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DK Find Out! | Fun Facts for Kids on Animals, Earth, History and more!

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Visit DK Find Out! to learn about dinosaurs, space, animals, nature & more. Fun learning activities for kids with videos, quizzes & galleries at DKFindOut.com

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Where is Skara Brae?

Can you imagine finding the remains of an ancient village buried at the beach? That's just how the old village of Skara Brae was found.

Skara Brae is a prehistoric stone settlement on the coast of the Orkney islands in Northern Scotland. It sits on a bay and is constantly exposed to the wind and waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

Who Discovered Skara Brae?

Scotland gets a lot of rain, and it was in 1850 that a storm with high tides and wind uncovered Skara Brae. The storm had stripped a lot of grass from the mounds on the beach, revealing the outlines of stone structures.

The local 'laird', which is a Scottish term for a landowner, was William Watt. He began excavating the site, but by 1868 only four houses had been uncovered and the site was abandoned. It would remain unbothered until 1925, when another storm damaged some of the excavated areas.

After the 1925 storm, locals constructed a sea wall to prevent the tide from damaging the site further. More buildings were discovered while the wall was being built, and between 1928 and 1930 these additional structures were uncovered. Scientists used carbon dating, which is a way of measuring how old something is, and discovered that the site was built around 3200 BCE to 2200 BCE. That puts it in the Neolithic time, thousands of years ago!

Neolithic people were some of the first people to settle down and raise crops and livestock. The people of Skara Brae were probably a very close community since their homes were so near each other.

What Can You See at Skara Brae?

If you went to Skara Brae today you'd see eight buildings from a path that winds through the site. Each of the dwellings is connected by a series of passages, a bit like alleyways. The passages have stone roofs that allowed the residents to go from house to house even in bad weather.

Since everything was covered in sand for 4,000 years, the interiors of each dwelling are very well preserved. They are all similar to each other, with a large room, a fireplace, bed area, and even shelves, all made of stones.

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skara brae facts: lesson for kids | study.com

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Skara Brae Facts: Lesson for Kids | Study.com

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Can you imagine finding the remains of an ancient village buried at the beach? That's just how the old village of Skara Brae was found. Skara Brae is a prehistoric stone settlement on the coast of the Orkney islands in Northern Scotland.

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A BBC Scotland site exploring Skara Brae

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KS2History: Information Guide to Skara Brae

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Find information about Skara Brae, a Stone Age setttlement discovered in Scotland. This guide is useful for the KS2 topic ‘Stone Age to Iron Age’.

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One of the most remarkable places to visit in Orkney is the Stone Age village of Skara Brae. 5000 years old, Skara Brae was perfectly preserved in a sand dune until it was found in 1850. Unlike the burial chambers and standing stones that make up the majority of the amazing archaeology in Orkney, Skara Brae is unique in that it offers us a glimpse into Neolithic everyday life. We've compiled some fascinating facts about Skara Brae you may not know!

2. In 1925 another storm damaged the previously excavated structures, and between 1928 and 1931, Gordon Childe, the first professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, was brought in to preserve the site for the public. A protective seawall was built and Childe's excavations uncovered more houses, which he believed to be Iron Age buildings - around 3,000 years old.

A later excavation by David Clarke in the 1970s gathered more information and, using the new technique of radiocarbon dating, revealed Skara Brae to be 5,000 years old.

7. The folk of Skara Brae had access to haematite (to make fire and polish leather) which is only found on the island of Hoy. From this, we can suppose that the folk of Skara Brae had contact with other Stone Age societies within Orkney. Goods and ideas (tomb and house designs) were exchanged and partners would have been sought from elsewhere in Orkney. The burial chambers and standing stones of Orkney are from the same time, so it is possible the folk of Skara Brae used these and even helped to build them.

8. At Skara Brae there is evidence of rebuilding and adapting the houses for successive generations. New houses were built out of older buildings, and the oldest buildings, houses 9 and 10 show evidence of having had stone removed to be reused elsewhere in the settlement. In fact, the door of house 9 appears to have been sealed shut by a passageway.

9. Why the settlement was abandoned is one of the most tantalising mysteries of Skara Brae. Although objects were left in Skara Brae which indicates a sudden departure for the folk who lived there (a popular theory was that they left to escape a sandstorm) it is now thought that a more gradual process of abandonment took place over 20 or 30 years. Discoveries at the Ness of Brodgar show that ceremonies were performed for leaving buildings and that sometimes significant objects were left behind. Perhaps the objects left were no longer in fashion.

By Magnus Dixon
Orkney and Shetland enthusiast, family man, loves walks, likes animals, terrible at sports, dire taste in music, great taste in films and tv, eats a little too much for his own good.
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Fascinating facts about Skara Brae | NorthLink Ferries

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One of the most remarkable places to visit in Orkney is the Stone Age village of Skara Brae. 5000 years old, Skara Brae was perfectly preserved in a sand dune until it was found in 1850.

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History

Skara Brae is remarkable because of its age, and even more so for the quality of its preservation. Its structures survive in impressive condition - as does, incredibly, the furniture in the village houses.

Nowhere else in Western Europe can we see such rich evidence of how our remote ancestors actually lived.

Skara Brae became part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Heart of Neolithic Orkney in 1999, in recognition of the site's profound importance.

Village houses and furniture

Skara Brae was originally an inland village beside a freshwater loch.

All of the houses were:

well built of flat stone slabs

set into large mounds of midden

linked by covered passageways

Each house has a single room, its floor space roughly 40sq m.

'Fitted' stone furniture in each room includes:

a 'dresser' - perhaps to store and display special objects

two box-beds

a central hearth

small tanks set into the floor - possibly for preparing fish bait

A larger structure at one end of the village has a special hearth and no box-beds, so may have been a workshop.

Artefacts and remains

A rich array of artefacts and natural remains has been discovered during various archaeological excavations.

The finds include:

gaming dice

tools

pottery

jewellery - necklaces, beads, pendants and pins

richly carved stone objects, perhaps used in religious rituals

The villagers were farmers, hunters and fishermen who were able to produce beautiful and complex items using basic tools.

No weapons have been found and the village was not in a readily defended location, both of which suggest a peaceful life.

Most artefacts found here are on display in the Skara Brae visitor centre.

The end of village life

No one knows why village life seems to have ended around 2500 BC. Some argue that a huge sandstorm covered the houses. Others believe it was a more gradual process.

As village life was ending, new monuments were starting to appear on mainland Orkney. The most important of these are Maeshowe Chambered Cairn, and the impressive Ring of Brodgar Stone Circle and Henge and Stones of Stenness Circle and Henge.

Ongoing excavations at Links of Noltland, Westray and Ness of Brodgar are now revealing other settlements of a similar period to Skara Brae.

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Read a brief history of Skara Brae, a Neolithic village that has Neolithic houses with stone furniture, displays of Neolithic artefacts and a replica house.

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Skara Brae facts for kids | National Geographic Kids

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Travel 5,000 years back in time with our Skara Brae facts. Where is Skara Brae? What is Skara Brae? How old is Skara Brae? Find out here!