Skara Brae
... In the center of the room there is a central, square hearth. In the middle of the far wall as you come in the door, there is a shelved stone dresser, on either side of the room, there are beds built into the wall. The houses are built into “midden,” a type of pre-existing organic junk; this makes it appear as if Skara Brae was an underground village, with tunnels for streets. The hearth is in the center of the room, which suggests that it was extremely important to Neolithic Orcadian life. Another possibly important thing is the stone dresser, pictured on the right, since it is the first thing seen as one walks through the door of any of the dwellings; it seems to have had some importance. Not that we know what that importance is, but it’s nice to know the speculations. The Skara Brae dwellers seem to have eaten many things, including seal meat, various types of fish including shellfish which were often kept in stone tanks within the houses, venison, boar meat and even sheep and cattle whose bones were found near some of the dwellings. Probably the people gathered the eggs of seabirds that live near the village, as this activity was practiced until very recently. The meat of a beached whale probably made a special treat and the remains of fields tell us that they probably grew wheat and barley. The uniformity of objects and furniture suggests that all inhabitants were equal. This, combined with its position in “the ceremonial heartland” of the...