Transcript: Jane Downes VFT 2: The Heart of Neolithic
Orkney
Question 1: What is it about the Neolithic sites and landscapes in West
Mainland, Orkney that warrant its World Heritage Site status?
Hello, I’m Jane Downes. I’m Head of Archaeology at Orkney College, University of the Highlands and Islands.
The Neolithic sites and landscapes in West Mainland in Orkney are inscribed as World Heritage sites. This
happened in 1999 and it’s on the basis of six elements of what comprises outstanding landscapes
throughout Orkney relating to the Neolithic.
The six sites that comprise the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site are:






Maeshowe, the tomb
The standing stones of Stenness
The Ring of Brodgar
Skara Brae, the settlement
The Watch Stone
The Brodgar Stone
Of all the Neolithic monuments in Orkney, this area was chosen for a designation as World Heritage Site
because it was felt to comprise a collection of sites that showed variety of the Neolithic sites in Orkney all
clustered together in one particular area and also some types of monuments that don’t occur anywhere
else, and these are the two stones circles. So although we have lots of Neolithic settlement in Orkney, and
increasingly so as more are found all the time through ploughing and coastal erosion, we don’t have
stones circles anywhere else but in this particular part of West Mainland.
The monuments that comprise the World Heritage Site are for the most part upstanding and always were
in terms of the stone circles and the standing stones, and of course the tomb of Maeshowe was
discovered (in inverted commas) by the Vikings, and so have been known about for a long time. Unlike
Skara Brae which is a very well preserved Neolithic village which was covered by sand in ancient times and
then revealed in the 19th century. So, if you like, the sites have different histories but they’re all grouped
together under this designation.
An important aspect of the designation is authenticity. And this is something that sites have to
demonstrate before being inscribed as World Heritage monuments. The sites in Orkney that have been
designated are considered to be almost completely authentic in that they’re still standing from ancient
times although in the case of the stone circles there’s obviously been some restoration taken place, in
reinstating stones that have fallen down and also some slight elements of consolidation of the stone work.
So, when we talk about the Heart of Neolithic Orkney, within an Orkney context, it is genuinely probably
the heart of Neolithic Orkney; it’s probably a place that people came to from throughout Orkney. The way
that we’ve excavated at the Ring of Brodgar and done some work on sourcing the stones shows that the
stones that comprise the Ring of Brodgar were coming from lots of different parts of the Orcadian
landscape. So you could almost envisage different communities bringing stones from their particular areas
File Ref:
Web:
Content:
Document1PR029
http://www.uhi.ac.uk/learning-and-teaching  edu@uhi.ac.uk
Page 1 of 2
Transcript: Jane Downes VFT 2: The Heart of Neolithic
Orkney
01/04/13
and these monuments probably represent therefore coming together from the whole of the Orcadian
population at particular times.
File Ref:
Web:
Content::
Document1
http://www.uhi.ac.uk/learning-and-teaching  edu@uhi.ac.uk
Page 2 of 2