Mountainman's Mantra: In The Year 3131 (3131 BC That Is).....A Tale of a Northern Town Skara Brae

Skara Brae & Bay o'Skaill

http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/skarabrae/skaraplan.htm

5000 Years and Counting

Welcome to Skara Brae, an advanced Neolithic village that was buried in the sands of time. Until the Winter of 1850, when a massive storm blew in and hit the Orkneys hard.(1). The result was so much sand had been washed into the sea that the stone structures of Skara Brae had been partially revealed. This intrigued local Laird William WATT of Skaill, who began the first excavation of Skara Brae. Work ending around 1868 with four partial excavated structures.(2).

Since then, Orkney has become the centre of archaeological & anthropological exploration & discovery. Most recently, The Ness of Brodgar has caused extreme excitement in the scientific community. This is a complete walled community, located between The Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness, consisting of many buildings – large and small. Only about four of the structures are currently being excavated by a small army of scientists. The quantity of artefacts recovered is enough to fill a large museum. The quality of these artefacts is second to none.

This is all fine & good, but really, why should I continue reading......why or how does this concern me???

After watching a recent documentary on YouTube, I feel compelled to share a different hypothesis on what may have been happening on Orkney & most specifically what Skara Brae may have been. My hypothesis will be of interest to many who are currently involved in the emergency preparedness community. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys-JGCPvD1E]

So, send it man! Tell us your theory. We want to know what a mountainman has to say.....

Around 3000 BC, a mere 5000 years ago life on our planet is thriving. China, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Maya are advancing their cultures, technology and power. Yes, there are peoples elsewhere but most are just surviving the struggles of life. While these areas are thriving not much mention is made of what is happening in Europe, specifically, Northern Europe.......

In my opinion, when written language is not used & it is up to oral history to preserve the past; we are at risk of losing all knowledge of a place, its people, their discoveries and achievements. In cultures which use oral traditions, important accomplishments become songs, heroic feats become sagas....but as time passes & generations are born & die, saga becomes myth......myth becomes legend.....and through the sands of time legends are often lost.

So, while Asia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Maya are experiencing advancement , Europe is a back water. The lands of the Druids & Picts.....a little further back. As for Orkney, how far from civilization can you get?? But, was there really nothing going on?? Was civilization really that far away??

As a child I had heard those stories about the lost continent of Atlantis. A great, advanced society with technology greater than what we have now in 2017 ad. However, a power struggle occurred and resulted in the whole continent being lost below the waves of the sea. Lost to time.

So, if you lived in such an advanced culture, you would have been aware of rising tensions between rival powers. With technology and probably weapons so advanced, the danger of a major crisis would not be a stretch of imagination. Those who had the wealth, power & knowledge would have taken precautions to insure the survival of themselves & those they cared for. Much like today's wealthy buying islands, estates & super bunkers, to survive a global meltdown. Whether the meltdown is a currency collapse, WW III , a nuclear accident, pandemic, EMP/CME or anything else that causes a grid down scenario in the modern world. The world's wealthiest people use their wealth to purchase boats, aircraft, vehicles, compounds, bunkers, power plants, solar farms, water plants, food reserves, armouries and armies to protect them. Too bad they do not use their wealth to invest in education & building communities; communities that solve problems not create them.

Ok, Mountainman, but how does this relate to a stone-age village on Orkney??

So, my hypothesis is......these stone communities on Orkney are the remains of the last holdouts for the survivors of an advance civilization, like the fabled Atlantis. Although, popular culture is convinced that Atlantis once existed South & East of Florida, in the neighbourhood of the Bermuda Triangle.....I have heard of another tale that suggests that Atlantis may have existed North & West of the islands that now comprise the United Kingdom.

I have no proof of either location for Atlantis, but, I would like to explore Skara Brae from a shelter perspective and then reverse engineer the “WHY”.

Skara Brae......home of ten buildings (http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/skarabrae/skaraplan.htm), stone buildings that are built so well they have survived at least 5000 years. These homes have bed chambers/boxes....like a bunker would have bunk beds. Meaning, the sleeping areas were purpose built into the structure, not a furniture piece that could be relocated as needed or desired. The next feature is the central fire pit for heating, cooking and boiling water. Surviving in cold climates central heat is a survival feature that minimizes waste, especially when fuel is in short supply. The next notable feature were the indoor water tanks. Did these tanks hold food?? Water in the Winter?? Whisky or wine?? The final use is not as important as the function of indoor water storage. People that understood the importance of water storage & had the skills, knowledge, experience to achieve it with the materials at hand. Whether their need was fresh seafood or water that would not freeze in the Winter, the fact is they had a waterproof, stone vessel 5000 years ago!! Could a person today achieve this in a survival shelter?? I have my doubts.

The features do not end there, no Skara Brae has more to teach us. These stone shelters had flushing toilets, sub-floor drainage and a drainage system that linked all the buildings in Skara Brae.....running under the common alleyways......draining away from the village. Flushing toilets systems would not become common in the UK until the end of the 19^th Century and beginning of the 20^th Century. So, here we have an operational wet toilet almost 5000 years ahead of its time.

Now, the big ones.....these homes are ALL built subterranean. Let me sat that again. ALL the homes were built below ground!!! Not built into a bank with South facing windows, but totally underground. Why?? Next, all of the homes were connected with a network of alleyways. Beneath the alley flagstones waste water flowed out of town. Above the alley were more stones creating a roof, covered with earth and sod on the outside. Meaning this whole village was below ground. Common tunnels/alleyways connected all the homes. The alley system has limited access points and minimal dimensions. Meaning it would be easier to defend and much more difficult to attack. The limited access points means fewer people would be tasked with watching them, thus freeing up resources for food gathering or farming. The minimal dimensions would require attackers to remove their armour to move through the alleyways. So, if an attacker did manage to breach the village, without armour they would be easier to defeat when trying to enter a home.

A whole village that was built underground would be very difficult to locate without satellites or ground penetrating radar, neither were available 5000 years ago. Had not the sea washed away the sand, we might not know Skara Brae existed, even today. Leading to the logical question; how many other villages are buried on planet Earth?? What are we wasting the resources of our satellites with right now?? Spying on our enemies?? Why are we not searching our planet for our ancestor's and their wisdom??

One last point on Skara Brae, the current bay – Bay o'Skaill, was once a meadow leading to the sea that was about a kilometre away from Skara Brae in 3131 BC. This meadow may have been fertile, meaning it was covered in grasses or possibly crops planted by those folks at Skara Brae. Grasses would have made it possible to keep livestock on this range/pasture – sheep, goats or cattle. Seafood from the sea and livestock from the land......survival on this remote locale would have been more than just possible, it would have been very likely.

We have lost so much about these people, some have suggested that items that have been recovered may suggest at the very least a trading network that extended as far away as the Middle-East. I may even speculate these people may have even had shipping routes to the end of the Mediterranean. Bold to say without proof of even a know vessel. However, any people who can build a house that lasts 5000 years, more than likely had the skills & knowledge to build seaworthy vessels. Like the Norse people who would arrive later, when boats became too old to sail or wrecked in storms, the timber would have been salvaged and re-purposed into beams for buildings, structures or furniture.....at the very least the wood would have been cut up to be burnt in the central hearths to heat and cook with.

Just from the surviving ruins of Skara Brae we can conclude these people were skilled builders, they had knowledge about their world that exceeds our knowledge of them from today. So, if you can build a house that lasts 5000 years, what else do you know?? Were these the last of a dying people who survived a great conflict or were these a people on the way up?? Rising from the ashes of a dead world??

From a military stand point why would you live below ground??

Easy to hide, hard to find
Low noise signature
Low light signature
Easier to heat/thermal efficiency
Easier to defend by limiting entrances & reducing the size of the passageways
Increased survivability from artillery
Protection from solar flares, CME's, X-Rays, EMP

From a survival point of view why would you live below ground??

More thermal efficient
Hard to find, thus less likely to have to defend from aggressors
More protection from extreme weather
Tornado proof
Fire proof
Predator resistant/proof
Radiation resistant/proof

From a political stand point why would you live below ground??

Explore ideas not currently politically acceptable or legal (The Earth is not flat)
Out of sight, out of mind – relatively safe & secure
Be free of oppression or oppressive laws, rules or taxes

From a religious point of view why would you live underground??

Freedom to practice spiritual/religious rituals that have been outlawed
Place to protect oral history, train new oracles, pass on knowledge
Quiet. Secure. Safe. Meditation, prayer, contemplation.
Control the flow of knowledge – limit who can enter or depart
Prevent disease. Remote, small population less likely to be exposed to or exchange disease/illness.

With no clear proof of what life was like in 3131 BC it is very hard to know why a subterranean village on Orkney would be needed or what they needed to be sheltered from. What we do know is that the people of Skara Brae were skilled builders and had a superior knowledge and understanding of living & surviving in their environment.

So, to wrap this up it is easy to state that anything built today would be highly unlikely to survive for 5000 years. However, there are many lessons we can learn from those who lived here on planet Earth back then. It would be wise if we spent more time, money & energy seeking previous settlements on our planet to study, than to waste money, time & resources/energy engaging in killing each other. Live & let live.

Time for Citizens of planet Earth to mature & grow up!! Time to advance up the evolutionary ladder. Time to shed our Type Zero past and become the Type One Civilization we are destined to become. Great things are waiting for us as a whole people if we can just move forward. Move beyond the trivial systems of money, power and greed. If we can just work together......we could be doing much more, exploring, discovering and solving. We would be rich in knowledge. It is time to awaken the people of Earth!!

Until next time....Challenge the status quo!!

Mountainman.