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Publication Account
Date 1996
Event ID 1016337
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016337
The ancient landscape on the promontory of Tofts Ness is typical of the extensive remains that can survive in marginal areas. Before excavation, there was little indication of the date of this great complex of large mounds up to 30m or more in diameter, low enclosure banks and small cairns in their hundreds, apart from some recent kelp kilns and kelp-drying stances. But selective excavation has identified circular houses and fields of two main periods, one neolithic and early bronze age and the other spanning the late bronze age and early iron age. From the earliest settlement on the promontory onwards, people were growing cereal crops (even using manure as fertiliser) and breeding cattle and sheep, and by the bronze age they were importing steatite from Shetland.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Orkney’, (1996).
