Beginnings英国起源(2)

There are the remains of Stone Age life dotted all over Britain and Ireland.

But nowhere as abundantly as Orkney,

with its mounds,

graves and above all its great circles of standing stones like here at Brodgar,

vast, imposing and utterly unknowable.

But Orkney boasts another Neolithic site,

that is, in its way,

even more impressive than Brodgar,

the last thing you would expect from the Stone Age,

a shockingly familiar glimpse of ancient domestic life.

Perched on the western coast of Orkney's main island,

a village called Skara Brae.

Here, beneath an area no bigger than the 18th grade of a golf course

lies Europe's most complete Neolithic community,

miraculously preserved for 5,000 years

under a blanket of sand and grass

until uncovered in 1850 by a ferocious sea storm.

This is a recognisable village,

neatly fitted into its landscape between the pasture and sea,

intimate, domestic and self-sufficient.

And although they were technically still in the Stone Age in the Neolithic period,

these dwellings are not huts,

they're true houses,

built from the sandstone slabs that lie all around the island

which gave stout protection to the villagers here at Skara Brae,

from their biting Orcadian winds.