Maeshowe Neolithic Site, Orkney
Maeshowe Neolithic Site, Orkney, Scotland This evening, the focus of my blog is one of Scotland’s top prehistoric sites, namely Maeshowe on Orkney . The structure dates from the Neolithic era (New Stone Age), around 3000BC and hence is some 5000 years old. Maeshowe is considered the finest chambered tomb in north-west Europe. To mind there are strong similarities with Newgrange in Ireland. I am also mindful of the social organisation in those far off days which must have been capable of marshalling a huge workforce at a time when the early people were living close to the environment and were restricted to just stone tools and, possibly, no wheeled vehicles. In essence Maeshowe consists of a grassy mound (35m across and 7m high) situated on a large circular platform surrounded by a ditch beyond which is a earthen bank. Incredibly, the interior has remained watertight over the millennia. No photographs of the interior are permitted. Inside the mound is a s...