Orkney is an archipelago off the coast of northeastern Scotland. In the nineteenth century European archaeologist began using a Three Age System—Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age—as a form of relatively dating in describing prehistory. During the last centuries BCE, iron began to replace bronze for tool making in Orkney. Iron was easier to obtain and work with, and it produced more versatile tools. While the designation Iron Age reflects the increasing use of iron for tools, the people continued using stone and bone artifacts. Ploughs, for example, continued to use a stone ard which was set into a wooden shaft and which was pulled by cattle. Bronze also continued to be used during this era.
During the Iron Age, a prominent circular stone tower, known as a broch, became common. Brochs were made of drystone construction (no mortar was used) with walls about five meters thick (about 16 feet) and up to 10 meters high. The circular internal area was between 9 and 12 meters (30 and 40 feet) in diameter. In his book Brochs of Scotland, J.N.G. Ritchie reports:
“The outer walls are always built with a distinctive inward batter, giving the profile of the broch its characteristic cooling-tower shape.”
In her book Monuments of Orkney: A Visitor’s Guide, Caroline Wickham-Jones writes:
“Brochs were built of local stone and represent a remarkable architectural achievement; some still survive to a considerable height.”
J.N.G. Ritchie puts it this way:
“The broch towers of iron age Scotland are a unique architectural invention, their distinctive form and often majestic location capturing the imagination of tourists and archaeologists, as well as those who live daily in their shadow.”
With regard to the Iron Age in Orkney, Caroline Wickham-Jones reports:
“The Iron Age was a time of conspicuous wealth and this is also reflected in smaller objects. Fine metal jewellery has been found as well as weaponry and there is evidence for local metalworking.”
Orkney contained some low-grade iron ore, but large amounts of it were need to extract small amounts of metal. The Iron Age Orcadians did have furnaces and smithing hearths.
Iron Age Orkney was not an isolated society. According to one display at the Orkney Museum:
“There was a wealthy and well-organised society, with knowledgeable and powerful overlords whose responsibility it was to keep the social order, to protect their people, to commission craftsmen and to conduct trade.
Technologies, such as iron working, were imported from the south, possibly paid with grain and meat. Metal and stone imports, and later Roman jewellry, glassware and pottery, suggest extensive sea-trading links with the east and west coasts of Scotland and with Shetland, although actual contact with Roman Britain was slight.”
Shown below are some of the Iron Age artifacts in the Orkney Museum in Kirkwall.
Shown above is a stone lamp.