Passageways between the houses in the village of Skara Brae on the southern shore of Bay of Skaill, Orkney, Scotland.
Skara Brae is an archaeological site with exceptionally well preserved remains that show the stone built furniture and internal structure of ten Neolithic houses and their narrow connecting passageways. Radio Carbon dates show that the village was occupied for around 600 years between 3200 and 2200 BC. There appear to be two main structural phases to the occupation.
Between the later houses at Skara Brae is a network of low winding passages. These made it possible to travel between Houses 1-7 without going outside. The passages are around a meter high and roofed with stone slabs. The main passage has bar-holes in the walls at either end suggesting that it could have been sealed from the inside.There were further bar-holes at the entrances to each of the houses allowing them to be closed and barred with stone slabs.
The monument is now managed by Historic Scotland and is a key element of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site. The Lidar survey was conducted by Scottish10 and made available by Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation (CDDV).
For more information contact CDDV