Neolithic Sites of Scotland

Step back 6,000 years in time. Scotland, or at least what we know today as Scotland, is a land in revolution. The Neolithic period is ushering in a new way of life, with the people of the day shifting from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a less nomadic existence. Trees are being felled to make space for settlements. Land is being tilled. Livestock is being farmed. And monuments – often truly epic, and even in the 21st century still bound up in mystery – are being fixed into the earth.

Today, many of the stirring remnants of this age remain. They tend to be clustered in coastal spots – most notably the islands of Orkney, which became a hugely important crossroads for seafarers across northern Europe – and while there’s much we’ll never know about the way these sites were used, or even how they were constructed, they stand today precisely where they have done for millennia, oozing intrigue and atmosphere.

From stone circles and burial tombs to ancient monuments and half-buried hamlets, these are places which once rang with life, which witnessed sunsets and sunrises, which gathered families and bound together communities, back in an era that was impossibly remote yet, somehow, still feels within reach. To visit them today is a privilege.