Old Scatness

To The Times

Sir:

Most people with an interest in history will have been astonished by the headline (May 16) "Stonehenge left standing by Iron Age village" and the use of statements from Historic Scotland in a way that suggests Old Scatness was an Iron Age settlement in 2,500 BC. Iron wasn't much used anywhere until a thousand years later. So—if true—this would be a fabulously important discovery.

What is nowhere clearly stated in the article—but can be deduced from careful reading, combined with a little general knowledge—is that Old Scatness was already known as a site of the Iron Age (brochs being typical monuments of Iron Age Scotland), but has now been discovered to contain evidence of much, much older occupation. It is possibly comparable in age to the early phases of Stonehenge (ca.3,000 BC onwards).

Should we be congratulating The Times for giving readers an exercise in practical archaeology—letting us sift the fascinating facts from disorderly rubbish and misleading clues?

Yours faithfully

Guy Herbert