Description:

Skara Brae is a perfectly preserved Stone Age village, covered for hundreds of years by a sand dune on the shore of the Bay of Skaill and exposed by a great storm in 1850. Four buildings were excavated during the 1860s by William Watt. After another storm in 1926, further excavations were undertaken by the Ancient Monuments branch of the British Ministry of Works. The settlement was inhabited from about 3200 to 2200 BC. In 1999, as part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney, Skara Brae was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, along with Maes Howe, a large chambered tomb, as well as two ceremonial stone circles, the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar.