When people think of ancient cultures and civilisations, they often think of the biblical lands or early Egypt as being the start of what we could maybe call "civilisation".

But there were people, smart people, living in carefully constructed towns, using cunningly constructed tools a long time before the rise of the Great Pharoahs.

You can't get much further away from NZ (in miles or time) than traveling to the Orkney Islands and visiting the Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae.

Rediscovered only 155 years ago, the people of this isolated place dwelt in one of the most inhospitable locations imaginable; the windswept Islands at the top of Scotland; natural resources were scanty, the weather was unkind and the people lived a very short lifespan.



Skara Brae was inhabited by relatives of the Grooved Ware people, known now for the type of pottery they made, called Unstan Ware, 4,000 years before Christianity raised it's dubious head and their culture was dying at about the same time the Egyptians were rising.

Today, Skara Brae looks like this



and their once buried village contained quite sophisticated structures



incorporating built in beds, ovens and conduits for removing waste.

You can read more about Neolithic people and the artifacts they left behind



here, and about neolithic civilisations in general here.

Even better, check out one of the most amazing and authoritative books on this huge topic of Megalithic/Neolithic cultures here.

Enjoy.