Did Orkney’s Mass Burials Result from Tsunamis?

ORKNEY, SCOTLAND—A new theory proposes that Neolithic burials in Orkney and Shetland may contain the bodies of tsunami victims, according to a BBC News report. The theory is based on clear evidence of tsunamis that occurred in the Solomon Islands and Vanuata, in the southern hemisphere, around the same time the burials date to, just over 5,000 years ago. Evidence of a tsunami that occurred around this time has been found at Garth Loch, South Nesting in Shetland, but no such evidence has been found in Orkney. “The question is, is it at all possible that even a single body in [the mass burials] might have drowned? And, if so, when did that drowning take place?” says James Goff of the University of South Wales. “And is it indeed possible that it is indeed linked to the Garth tsunami?” Archaeologists who have excavated in Orkney are skeptical of the theory. They point out that the mass burial sites do not show signs of having been constructed in haste and that they appear to have been built over a span of hundreds of years, and as such could not have been the result of a single event. To read in-depth about archaeology in Orkney, go to “Neolithic Europe's Remote Heart.”