Dr Julia Cussans, of the UHI Archaeology Institute, is currently carrying out an overall assessment of the animal bone assemblage from the Ness of Brodgar excavation.
On Friday, she presented a well-received paper, Counting Cattle at the Ness of Brodgar, Orkney: Animal bone assessment update, at the 44th Association for Environmental Archaeology conference in Oxford.
Julia’s presentation briefly outlined what is known so far and the research questions relating to the animal bone assemblage, how these might be answered and integrating the animal bone data with the many other strands of evidence recovered from the site.
From 2004, excavation on the Ness of Brodgar revealed a huge complex of monumental Neolithic buildings from the centuries around 3000BC. Without parallel in Atlantic Europe, the site’s three hectares were filled with huge stone structures containing spectacular finds.
Fieldwork ended in 2024 and the focus is now on the post-excavation analysis of the data gathered. This will lead to full publication with much more available online.
