第一章 起源
From its earliest days, Britain was an object of desire.
Tacitus declared it "pretium victoriae" - worth the conquest, the best 吃什么长高最快
compliment that could occur to a Roman.
He had never visited the shores but was nonetheless convinced that Britannia was rich in gold.
Silver was abundant too.
Apparently so were pearls, though Tacitus had heard they were grey, like the overcast, rain-heavy skies, and the natives only collected them when cast up on the shore.
As far as the Roman historians were concerned, Britannia may be off at the edge of the world, but it was off the edge of their world, not in a barbarian wilderness.
If tho writers had been able to travel in time as well as space to the northernmost of our i
slands, the Orcades - our modern Orkney - they would have en something much more astonishing than 牙龈肿痛原因
pearls: Signs of a civilisation thousands of years older than Rome.
There are remains of Stone Age life all over Britain and Ireland.
But nowhere as abundantly as Orkney, with its mounds, graves and its great circles of standing stones like here at Brodgar.
Vast, imposing and utterly unknowable.
Orkney has another Neolithic site, even more impressive than Brodgar, the last thing you would expect from the Stone Age, a shockingly familiar glimp of ancient domestic life.
Perched on the western coast of Orkney's main island, a village called Skara Brae.
Beneath an area no bigger than the 18th green of a golf cour lies Europe's most complete Neolithic community, prerved for 5,000 years under a blanket of sand and grass until uncovered in 1850 by a ferocious a s求职信结尾
torm.
This is a recognisable village.
Neatly fitted into its landscape between pasture and a, intimate, domestic and lf-sufficient.
Technically still the Stone Age and Neolithic period, the are not huts, they're true hous, built from sandstone slabs that lie all around the island and gave stout protection to villagers at Skara Brae, from their biting Orcadian winds.
They were real neighbours, living cheek by jowl, their hous connected by walled, sometimes decorated alleyways.
It is easy to imagine gossip travelling down tho alleys after a hearty afood supper.
We have everything you could want from a village except a church and a pub.
In 3,000 BC, the a and air were warmer than they are now.
Once they'd ttled in their sandstone hous, they could harvest red bream and musl
s and oysters that were abundant in the shallows.
Cattle gave meat and milk and dogs were kept for hunting and for company.
In Neolithic times there would have been a dozen hous, half-dug into the ground for comfort and safety.
A thriving, bustling little community of 50 or 60.
The real miracle of Skara Brae is that the hous were not mere shelters.
They were built by people who had culture, who had style.
Here's where they showed off that style.
A fully equipped, all-purpo Neolithic living room, complete with luxuries and necessities.
Necessities?
Well, at the centre, a hearth, around which they warmed themlves and cooked.
A stone tank in which to keep live fish bait.
Some hous had drains underneath them, so they must have had, believe it or not, indoor toilets.
Luxuries?
The orthopaedically correct stone bed may not em particularly luxurious, but the addition of heather and straw would have softened the sleeping surface and would have made this bed em rather snug.
At the centre of it all was this spectacular dresr on which our hou-proud villagers would t out all their most precious stuff.
Fine bone and ivory necklaces, beautifully carved stone objects, everything designed to make a grand interior statement.
Given the rudimentary nature of their tools, it would have 平整的近义词
taken countless man hours to build not only the dwellings but the great circles of stone民谣吉他弹唱
where they would have gathered to worship.
Skara Brae wasn't just an isolated ttlement of fishers and farmers.
Its people must have belonged to some larger society, one sophisticated enough to mobili the army of toilers and craftsmen needed, not just to make the monuments, but to stand them on end.
They were just as concerned about housing the dead as the living.
The mausoleum at Maes Howe, a couple of miles from Skara Brae, ems no more than a swelling on the grassy landscape.
This is, as it were, a British pyramid and in keeping with our taste for understatement, it rerves all its impact for the interior.
