Lewis crannog turns out to be more than 5,000 years old

A wee island in Loch Bhorgastail on Lewis has been hiding its real age. Researchers from the Universities of Southampton and Reading mapped the crannog, a man-made island, using stereophotogrammetry, stitching photos taken from different angles into a 3D model, and found the thing started life as a circular timber platform about 75 feet across, topped with brushwood.

Neolithic pottery scattered around it dates that first build to more than 5,000 years ago, somewhere between 3800 and 3300 BC. Later generations kept adding to it: more brushwood and stone in the Bronze Age, then an Iron Age stone causeway, now underwater.

The pottery hints it was a spot for cooking and feasting. Crannogs were always thought to be Iron Age or later, so this pushes the story back a good 2,000 years.