Scotland Neolithic Sites
 

I'm way ahead in the game; I am planning a graduation trip to Scotland next summer (07) with my sister. She is particularly interested in Neolithic stone sites (stone circles, burial chambers, etc.) We are planning on spending about 2 weeks there and are willing to drive/go anywhere including the Shetland and Orkney Islands. I have also read about Skae Brae (sp?) and figure we will probably make a ferry ride to see that. Any other suggestions? (P.S. The less "touristy" the better) Thanks!

You have lots of choices. There are sites all over the country. Skara Brae of course plus others in the Orkneys, but also Kilmartin Glen, several locations on Lewis/Haris, sites scattered around Aberdeenshire and Perthshire, several on the far northern mainland in Caithness, Clava Cairns and so on. There are hundreds.

Try to find a copy of <i>A Land of Gods and Giants</i>. It may be out of print but it is a wonderful book covering neolithic sites all over the UK (not just in Scotland)

Hi,
Last year I travelled all over Scotland and found Neolithic sites everywhere, (my son and I are very keen). While staying in Huntly I picked up a leaflet in the Tourist Information Office called &quot;The Stone Circle&quot;. this is like the Castle Trail and Whisky trail leaflets, directing you to various sites. We discovered Pictish rune stones, vitrified hillforts, recumbent stone circles and cairns, all in one afternoon. It was great. The Orkney sites are marvellous, especially Skara Brae and Maes Howe and one of the best was the Grey Cairns of Camster in back country between Wick and Scrabster. They are simply aweinspiring.

Hi,

I can give you some web links. My husband's heavily into this stuff, so the house is full of books and maps and plans. Please feel free to ask for details.

Orkney (rather thann Shetland) is choc a bloc with stuff; Kilmartin is absolutely wonderful, and has a very good interpretive centre, and the North East of Scotland with its recumbant Stone Circles and Archaeolink is also great.

There's some pretty good stuff in Dumfries and Galloway, and it's almost all free.

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~aburnham/scot/index.htm

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~aburnham/scot/index.htm

http://www.megalith.ukf.net/

There's a good museum on Pictish carvings at Rosemarkie in the Black Isle.

But you will find things round ever corner. Historic Scotland do a good set of regional booklets worth following.

I found this site invaluable in planning our trip to Ireland. They have info on Scotland too:

http://www.stonepages.com/

I recently read a book titled &quot;The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany&quot; which included Scotland. It was very detailed with graphs, maps, etc.

Orkney is THE place to go, but as others have said you'll find neolithic sites almost everywhere. The whole area south of Oban, including Kilmartin Glen and Dunadd, is good and not too busy. Callanish Standing Stones on the Isle of Lewis are special but can get busy - try and get there early in the day. I recommend a visit to Archeolink in Aberdeenshire if you're anywhere near. Not purely neolithic but it's good at making archeology come alive. When we visited we helped to cook an authentic iron age meal, starting by grinding the flour for the bread (thankfully the meat came ready to cook). The only thing we weren't allowed to do was eat it - the utensils didn't meet modern hygiene standards. Lawyers 1, Common sense 0.

You've gotten great suggestions so far. In addition, for a good general archaeological guidebook, I'd recommend Scotland: An Oxford Archaeological Guide, by Anna &amp; Graham Ritchie.

Other useful websites include
http://www.rcahms.gov.uk (Registration is free)
http://www.scran.ac.uk/
You have to pay to use the full SCRAN website, but for free you can search and find images of hundreds of sites.

For sheer density of small stone circles, the northeast (hi, Sheila!) is pretty amazing, and most of those sites are less touristed by the casual visitor than those in most other areas. You can drive around with an Ordnance Survey map and go into stone circle overload. But it does have fewer &quot;big stars&quot; than Orkney, which is like Nirvana for Neolothic fans.

&quot;Neolothic?&quot; Just because I've studied it doesn't mean I can type it!

Thank you all so much. This will be a great starting point for us to decide exactly how we want to do this. It sounds like it will definitely be worth the trip to the Orkney Islands. We didn't want to go for just the one site.

To add a few belated comments I would endorse comments about Orkney. Skara Brae and Maes Howe will be busy but are 'musts'. Consider taking the local ferry to Rousay where there is an incredible range of monuments in the space of a couple of miles, and probably not too many people.

At the small end of the scale a Scottish site that intrigued me was the Hill of Many Stanes near Mid Clyth in Caithness where there are 200 or so small stones arranged in lines.

Michael

My husnad and I just returned from a 2 week trip to Scotland, 5 days of which were spent in Orkney. We used a wonderful personal tour guide, Caz Mamwell, who is an archeologist and really knew her stuff. While Skara Brae and Maes Howe are worth seeing, there are better sites with absolutely no tourists she can show you. Mine Howe is a subterranean chamber you descend down 29 stone steps into what one can only guess was used for ritual purposes, big enough to hold 3 people. Really awesome. The island of Rousay has the Midhowe Cairn and Midhowe Broch, both incredible, and we were the only ones there. You can check out her website at www.orkneyarcheologytours.co.uk You will love Orkney.