REMAINS OF PICTISH VILLAGE AT BIRSAY ORKNEY ISLANDS

Thanks for the explanation under the photo, which brings the picture to life.:o)

Do you ever get archiologists there

There is so much archeology in orkney that they say you can't dig a garden without disturbing an ancient site. We have a resident archeaologist called July Gibson. she lives on the island of Rousay. you may have seen her on time team. there are new sites being uncovered nearly every summer, and teams come from various universaties to do the work

Thank you for answering my question, yes I have seen her on Time Team, have you ever discovered any thing there.

when I first came here ,I used to keep my eyes open around the coastlines where there was erosion, I did find part of a building very close to scara brae. I think there was very little of it left, as when I go there now it has dissapeared into the sea. there are a lot of mounds all round the island, many of them probably have neolithic tombs etc. under them, but you are not allowed to go and dig amongst them

What a shame its disappered into the sea, did you photo it before it was claimed by the sea? What a shame you can't dig, I wonder why they won't let you dig, it might be because if it is tombs they would find it sacred ground.

there is a photograph somewhere but I would have to dig deep to find it.the reasons you are not allowed to dig them is that they are on private land. known sites are protected by the law in both england and scotland. the laws were introduced to protect historic sites, mostly due to the rise in numbers of metal detector users. it is desirable that all artefacts are left in these sites so that when future archeology digs take place they are still there to aididentifying what the site was, and to date sites.

Yes I can understand now why makes sense, thank you for explaining.