Robert Sepehr: Prehistoric Hobbit Village in Orkney

[Music] situated off the north coast of Great Britain part of the Northern Isles of Scotland is where we find Orkney which is made up of 70 islands of which 20 are inhabited with habitations stretching back at least 8500 years the largest island is called the mainland with an area of about 200 square miles and was once home to a forgotten people that history refers to as the pics a confederation of celtic speaking peoples who left behind stone monuments inscribed with symbolic designs which predated Christianity it was the Roman Empire that spread Christianity into southern Britain and the pics were their enemies and considered them as an occupying force that said the Romans never fully occupied northern Scotland and most of what we know about the pics comes from Roman sources so it's largely bias they did however conquer the British Island through religion using British mercenaries and this is expressed in the story of st. Patrick the patron saint of Ireland who drove out the snakes a creature which never inhabited Ireland and is symbolic for the people now largely regarded as pagans I cover this in the video on st. Patrick which I will leave a link to in the description for those that are interested and missed it much of the real Irish Scottish and even British history has been lost and is no longer taught but parts remain in myth and legend such as the truth of day Danone which I also cover and we'll leave a link to a video in the description and while I'm at it I'll include a link to a presentation I did on how Scotland got its name it's titled an old Irish legend about an ancient Egyptian princess so if you take the time to watch it please share your thoughts with me in the comment section as I also learn a lot from the feedback I received on these videos dot said in today's episode we will go back in time to an era before the pics which incidentally is not what they called themselves but was a name given to them by the Romans that means painted or tattooed likely read like the word Phoenician from the Greek word finest meaning red or the tribe of Dan whose color was red and whose symbol was the snake the Phoenicians invaded Britain over 3,000 years ago and they wanted tin to mix with copper to make bronze and they mixed with the indigenous people they're the original pigs who were short statured dark-haired round and broad headed which in anthropological terms is called brachycephalic and it is this pre Phoenician ancient race or phenotype that we will explore today long before Stonehenge or even most of the Egyptian pyramids were built a thriving village existed in Scotland one day a farmer on the island of Orkney found a large stone that didn't look like it belonged in its environment when the farmer flipped over the stone he was shocked at what he discovered underneath skara brae a hidden and lost village that existed over five thousand years ago the farmer thought it was a house at first because it looked rather small to be a village but when it was active it was home to over a hundred people which might not seem like a lot but back then it was considering the population density was much lower the village or tiny city was well preserved for thousands of years as it was covered with sand I know some of my subscribers will compare this to gobekli tepe the ten thousand year old site in modern-day Turkey whose large stone monuments were also buried and well preserved but the difference is that Gobekli Tepe was purposely buried and skara brae got covered by sand dunes either rapidly over time but it wasn't in any event these buried homes were not just used as shelters for its citizens but the center of each home contained a waterproof basin which some archeologists believe was used to catch fish in but there are other more bizarre theories which I will cover later there are eight subterranean dwellings at the site and each is connected by underground tunnels as well as a workshop area the covered passages between the homes are a little over four feet high so the occupants would likely have been four feet tall or even shorter this is the only entrance to the village and the only exit originally this passageway would have been roofed over with stone slabs the passageway is long and narrow and winding and this is to stop the wind coming through and causing drafts on either side of the passageway there are entrances into the individual houses this is the entrance to the house and it's very low as you come into the house you have to walk to the right because on the left there is this barrier as you come into the house you move round and come to the seat this is where we think the father of the house would have sat right in close to the fire the fire is in the same tone of the house and it was the only source of heat and light for the people here they would have spent the evenings in the house around the fire and they would have done all the cooking here in this house as well as the father they would have been the mother and the children and possibly granny and granddad and auntie's and uncles as well this is what we call an extended family they would have all lived under this one roof this was something that was common in the Neolithic or the Stone Age but it also carried on in Orkney until the middle of the 19th century about 1850 or so the Stone Age people would have hunted and finished and farmed they would have grown their own crops and they would have used the grinder to grind the corn to make flour to make their bread skara brae is a village built inside a midden a maiden is garden compost and bones and pieces of pottery and pieces of shale that are all piled up together in her mind and then when the mound has been there for a long time they dug into the mount and then stone lined the circles that they dug into the mound and these became the houses within the village they planned the village from the very beginning so that there would be a passageway leading directly through the village and then the houses would lead off from either side the hoses therefore were almost like being underground and the medon or the compost kept them warm and kept out all the drafts from the wind and the winter the passage we certainly was roofed over by stones but the hoses themselves we think would have been roofed with wooden beams then with skins over the beams and they impossibly hither such or turf on top to form aligning we think that during the summer time and during the daytime the people wouldn't have been in the village at all but they would have worked outside the village and in fact on top of it on these areas that you can see between the houses and they're only in the winter time when it was very cold and dark and in the evenings would they then go inside the houses the village was eventually abandoned because the sand came in from the sea and felled in the houses and covered them over preserving them and then they were undiscovered for 4000 years until in 1850 they were uncovered in a storm in the winter and therefore we have the best preserved Stone Age village in Europe the site is missing its roof so one can look down into the hobbit-like dwellings from above with the fascinating pattern used in each of the homes consisting of a central fireplace beds to either side and what appears to be a dresser of shelves there would have been blankets and screens made from animal skins and furs but we have to imagine those rather than just the cold stone skeletons of the rooms there were also large pots found which date back to around 3,000 BC used for heating malt they germinated and heated cereal grains that ferment to produce alcohol a few miles from skara brae there are multiple other Neolithic sites including the Ring of Brodgar a huge circle originally of 60 standing stones it's just over the hill from the site and it's hard to imagine how inhabitants of a small hobbit like community could excavate transport and erect such monuments so long ago the ritual complex is among the oldest structures on the British Isles and shows inhabitants were well aware of the solstices and equinoxes another important archaeological site located near skara brae is the standing stones of Stenness dating back to 3100 BC it was a ritual site which has long been associated with magic and a Norse god Odin which also had astronomical significance these megalithic structures imply that skara brae likely housed a group of astronomer priests who were responsible for maintaining the sacred sites while mainstream scholars reject the idea in favor of a more typical Neolithic farming village the fact is that ancient farmers relied on astrological data which guided them on when to plant and harvest and also lived in tune with nature using those same yearly cycles to have festivals rituals and time the religious rites my name is Robert supper I'm an anthropologist you can find my published books on Amazon thank you to those who support me on patreon your support is greatly appreciated there should be a link below for those who are interested I'd also like to thank anyone that shares my videos as I rely on word of mouth please remember to hit the like button don't forget to subscribe I look forward to reading your thoughts in the comments section please have a wonderful weekend and I hope to see you again soon