Archaeologists discover 5,000-year-old fingerprint
April 24, 2021 at 8:00 am
An image of the fingerprint captured using Reflectance Transformation Imaging this week. (Jan Blatchford)
An Orkney potter’s fingerprint dating back 5,000 years ago has been discovered by archaeologists.
It is the latest startling discovery made at the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute’s flagship Ness of Brodgar excavation, where a complex of monumental buildings in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site has been under investigation since 2006.
The potter’s fingerprint was noted by ceramics specialist Roy Towers, who was examining a pot sherd from the huge assemblage recovered from the site the largest collection of late Neolithic Grooved Ware pottery in the UK.
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Erosion Reveals Possible Neolithic Village Site in Scotland
INVERNESS, SCOTLAND
The Scotsman reports that erosion on the island of Orkney at the northern end of the Bay of Skaill has exposed deer antlers, a boar tooth, a cattle jawbone, and a large stone marked with incised triangles and a series of rectangular bands. The artifacts were found about a half-mile away from the site of the Neolithic village of Skara Brae, which is located at the bay’s southern end. Sigurd Towrie of the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute said the artifacts could mark the presence of another village dating back some 4,000 to 5,000 years. “If this is the case, and based on the scale of the eroded section, we may well be looking at a Neolithic/Bronze Age site on a par with Skara Brae albeit one that is now disappearing at an alarming rate,” he explained. Towrie and his colleagues will continue to monitor the site. To read about a ceremonial center on the Orkney arch
Scotland’s Largest Pictish Site (Image Credit - © University of Aberdeen) THE discovery of the largest Pictish site to date in Aberdeenshire is being described as one of the most significant archaelogical finds of 2020. A team from the University of Aberdeen uncovered evidence in May that up to 4000 people may have lived on the summit of Tap O’ Noth near Rhynie around 1700 to 1400 years ago. That discovery joins the find of 5,000-year-old textiles and hundreds of medieval skeletons as among the top finds according to the senior antiquarian body of Scotland. The Edinburgh-based Society of Antiquaries of Scotland says that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the Scottish archaeological sector, with the majority of commercial archaeology being brought to a standstill during the lockdown and most community-led groups unable to continue their work at all.