| [00:15.20] | There are the remains of Stone Age life dotted all over Britain and Ireland. |
| [00:21.58] | But nowhere as abundantly as Orkney, |
| [00:24.00] | with its mounds, |
| [00:24.94] | graves and above all its great circles of standing stones like here at Brodgar, |
| [00:30.74] | vast, imposing and utterly unknowable. |
| [00:38.72] | But Orkney boasts another Neolithic site, |
| [00:40.63] | that is, in its way, |
| [00:41.88] | even more impressive than Brodgar, |
| [00:44.39] | the last thing you would expect from the Stone Age, |
| [00:47.41] | a shockingly familiar glimpse of ancient domestic life. |
| [00:52.84] | Perched on the western coast of Orkney's main island, |
| [00:55.37] | a village called Skara Brae. |
| [01:07.03] | Here, beneath an area no bigger than the 18th grade of a golf course |
| [01:11.26] | lies Europe's most complete Neolithic community, |
| [01:15.29] | miraculously preserved for 5,000 years |
| [01:18.06] | under a blanket of sand and grass |
| [01:20.66] | until uncovered in 1850 by a ferocious sea storm. |
| [01:36.66] | This is a recognisable village, |
| [01:39.53] | neatly fitted into its landscape between the pasture and sea, |
| [01:43.57] | intimate, domestic and self-sufficient. |
| [01:46.59] | And although they were technically still in the Stone Age in the Neolithic period, |
| [01:50.72] | these dwellings are not huts, |
| [01:52.62] | they're true houses, |
| [01:53.91] | built from the sandstone slabs that lie all around the island |
| [01:57.64] | which gave stout protection to the villagers here at Skara Brae, |
| [02:01.91] | from their biting Orcadian winds. |
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