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Standing Stones of Stenness (Illustration)
The so-called Standing Stones of Stenness is a Neolithic monument on the island of Orkney, Britain. The four standing stones (each about 300 mm thick and measuring up to 5 m tall) were once part of a massive henge monument which included perhaps 12 standing stones in total.
Radiocarbon dating has shown that there was ritual activity on the site by at least 3100 BCE.
Questions & Answers
Where does the name Scotland come from?
- Scotland derives from the Latin "Scotti", which the Romans used in referring to an Irish tribe in the region.
What name was Scotland known by before the Romans?
- Scotland was known as Alba in Scots Gaelic - though this originally only referred to the land of the Picts. It is unclear what name the whole of Scotland was called prior to the coming of Rome. The Romans called the land Caledonia, which probably meant "rocky land", though this is challenged.
What is the oldest stone house in Europe?
- The Knap of Howar in Orkney, Scotland, is the oldest stone house in Europe.
What is Skara Brae?
- Skara Brae is a Neolithic site in Orkney, Scotland, dated to c. 3100 BCE. It was a residential community of hunter-gatherers.
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Based on Wikipedia content that has been reviewed, edited, and republished.
Original image by Bob Jones. Uploaded by Jeffrey King, published on 07 January 2019. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon a work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
