Scord of Brouster

The Scord of Brouster denotes a Neolithic settlement on the Shetland Islands, Scotland.

Location

The village is located on the now barren Shetland Islands in the North Sea. Like the country seem inhospitable today, so the climate was in the times of Stone Age -friendly, so that there is a living could be earned. The first settlers cleared the prevailing forest of willow, hazel and birch. They fertilize the soil with ashes and dung of their cattle, beef cattle and sheep. As the weather around 1500 BC began to deteriorate and the bottom vertorfte, the settlements moved further towards the coast. Since then, the former business area lay fallow.

Dating

The farm was found cultivated over a period of about 1500 years, from about 4000/3000-1500 BC The artifacts found are from both the typology as well as from the technology homogeneous. However, only some of the artifacts could be used for accurate dating; so two leaf-shaped arrowheads that suggest a Neolithic age. Finds from house 3 indicate a dating to the early Bronze Age.

Description

The settlement consists of several oval houses and stone walls of field boundaries. The earliest houses were built of wood and are no longer visible today. But the remains of three stone houses are still clearly visible. House 1 was built first, Building 3 is the latest addition to which also a guest house or a workshop was located. Close to Home 2 is a grave mound. The houses were surrounded by irregular cut fields, the stone boundary walls are still partially visible.

The retrieved stones were attributed to 3 houses and a hill grave.

The orientation of the house 1 runs on a northwest-southeast axis, the entrance is on the southeast side. It measures about 13 m in length, 10 m in width. In addition, it has six indentations which, it is presumed, were used as sleeping quarters or workshops.

House 2 and 3 have a length of about 11 m and a width of approximately 8.2 m. In House 2, which is rather kidney-shaped, there is a strikingly large indentation of about 2 m, which could have possibly served as a place to sleep. In contrast to house one here is just one more notch.

Artifacts

In House 1 and 2 large amounts of artifacts in the form of stone fragments were found in House 3 just a few. In total, almost 10,000 of these witnesses were found. For example, arrowheads, which were used either for defensive purposes or for hunting. There is also evidence that these tips have been produced locally. Furthermore, two different forms of knives, the different tasks are intended for. Remains of organic material, such as wood and wool were not preserved. The few finds from House 3 suggest that this building either only very briefly been in use, or has been extensively cleaned or it was intended for a particular function - or all three options in combination.