Skara Brae

Skara Brae (/ˈskærə ˈbreɪ/) is a stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill in the parish of Sandwick, on the west coast of Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. It consisted of ten clustered houses, made of flagstones, in earthen dams that provided support for the walls; the houses included stone hearths, beds, and cupboards. A primitive sewer system, with "toilets" and drains in each house, included water used to flush waste into a drain and out to the ocean.

The site was occupied from roughly 3180 BC to around 2500 BC and is Europe's most complete Neolithic village. Skara Brae gained UNESCO World Heritage Site status as one of four sites making up "The Heart of Neolithic Orkney". Older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids of Giza, it has been called the "Scottish Pompeii" because of its excellent preservation.

Care of the site is the responsibility of Historic Environment Scotland which works with partners in managing the site: Orkney Islands Council, NatureScot (Scottish Natural Heritage), and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Visitors to the site are welcome during much of the year.

Uncovered by a storm in 1850, the coastal site may now be at risk from natural erosion.

The modern name Skara Brae reflects the layered linguistic history of Orkney, where elements from Old Norse and Scots frequently appear in place names. The word brae is a Scots term meaning "slope" or "hillside", commonly used in Scotland to describe rising ground or a bank above lower land.

The first element, Skara, derives from earlier recorded forms such as Skerrabra or Styerrabrae, names originally applied to the grassy mound that once covered the buried settlement. These earlier forms reflect the strong Scandinavian influence on Orkney's place names following Norse settlement in the early medieval period.

The name therefore originally referred not to the Neolithic village itself but to the natural knoll that concealed it. In the winter of 1850 a severe storm stripped turf and sand from this mound, exposing the stone-built houses beneath and leading to the adoption of the name Skara Brae for the prehistoric settlement that was subsequently excavated.

Like many archaeological sites in Orkney, the modern place name describes the landscape feature in which the monument was discovered rather than any name used by the Neolithic community that built and occupied the settlement more than five thousand years earlier.