Cata Sands Site Yields Neolithic House, Whale Skeletons

ORKNEY, SCOTLAND—According to a report in The Scotsman, a well-preserved Neolithic house and the skeletons of 12 nineteenth-century whales in two large pits have been uncovered on the Orkney island of Sanday. An account dating to 1875 describes the practice of driving whales ashore at Cata Sands, where they were butchered for their blubber. The Neolithic house, complete with a hearth, internal partitions, and stone walls, rests on a base of rounded beach stones and a deep layer of sand and is thought to date to between 3400 and 3100 B.C. Pottery fragments, knives, a grinding stone, pieces of flint, and animal bones were also found. For more on archaeology in Scotland, go to “A Dangerous Island.”