By Bernie Bell.
The Time Team mini-dig at The Ness of Brodgar is now over, and there might be some puttering about what was found not being as extra-ordinary as the GPR indicated.
I was thinking…..to me, this trench encapsulates The Ness. It has a hearth, and a drain. A flint arrow-head was found, a spatulate tool and a piece of Lewisian Gneiss waiting to be worked. A ‘Butterfly’ stone and some pottery. Paved areas. Structures which were adapted.
The Ness in a nutshell.
Evidence of Medieval ploughing brings the site nearer to our time – the Neolithic folk were the first farmers in Britain, then Medieval farmers made their mark on The Ness, which has been farmed ever since.
For 20 years, today’s People of the Ness excavated and turned our understanding of Neolithic society upside-down.
And then along came Time Team.
That’s how I see it anyway – a neat encapsulation of human activity on that site, through time.
And…this dig has generated more interest in The Ness as a whole -hopefully leading to more donations for post-excavation work!
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