Transcript: Caroline Wickham-Jones VFT 2: The Heart of
Neolithic Orkney
Question 1: What impact has sea level change had on the islands of Orkney
over the last 10,000 years?
I’m Caroline Wickham-Jones and I’m a lecturer in Archaeology at The University of Aberdeen but I live and
work in Orkney where I have been carrying out research on changes in the landscape and the kind of
relationship and the impact of that on the prehistoric peoples who had been living in Orkney.
The big change took place going back from about 8000 years ago to 4000 years ago when Orkney actually in
that period lost about 20% of available land. So if you look at Orkney when the first people arrived, about
8000 years ago it was essentially two big islands and over that period sea level change has gradually risen –
faster at first and then slowing down – and it’s only reached present levels about 4000 years ago. So,
essentially that meant, for the prehistoric people who were living here, the stability that we know now
would not have been the norm. They would have, certainly in the early period have been aware of sea level
change and I think they would even towards the end of the Neolithic, when it was slowing down because
they would have known that areas of land or the landscape was different in the days of their grandparents,
perhaps there would have been stories and things.
Really it’s been a question of a diminishing landscape and the fact that has meant the islands have broken
up into the archipelago that we know today. And obviously that has a big impact on resources and things.
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