26 Y E A R B O O K 2 0 1 9 ongoing monitoring and maintenance and will come under increasing pressures as climate change intensifies. At Skara Brae, we are working in partnership with many other bodies to understand the coastal processes at work in order to actively inform our ongoing management of the site. The prehistory and history of Skara Brae is inextricably linked with its landscape setting, its exposure to natural hazards, its archaeological investigation and excavation and efforts to preserve it for future generations to enjoy. Skara Brae comprises a network of early prehistoric houses, with drystone furniture still in situ, including beds, fireplaces and dressers. The level of preservation for a domestic settlement of this age is exceptional within northern Europe. The site forms a key element within the Heart of Neolithic Orkney world heritage site (WHS), inscribed in 1999, and is a scheduled monument and a property in the care of Scottish ministers, with management delegated to HES. Skara Brae is located in the Bay of Skaill, on the west coast of the Orkney Mainland. It is the remains of a neolithic village occupied from c3,100 to 2,500BC, which was around 1km inland when occupied, situated next to a freshwater loch that was separated from the sea by a dune system to the west. This was breached by the sea c1,000BC, leading to the creation of the horseshoe-shaped bay seen today. The site remained hidden under windblown sand until it was partly uncovered during a storm in 1850, which stripped vegetation and sand from a dune known locally as Skerrabra. Antiquarian investigations and clearance took place in 1850–67 and 1913. The site came into state guardianship in 1922, with a sea wall then being constructed in 1925–26 following a further storm in 1924. Further work on the site in the 1920s included excavations directed by V G Childe. The monument was originally scheduled in 1928, the year Childe began his excavations. Further smaller scale excavations, directed by D V Clarke of National Museums of Scotland in 1972–73 successfully obtained the first radiocarbon dates from the site, confirming it as neolithic. There are two main phases of construction evident in the excavated remains. The earliest phase consisted of freestanding buildings with the later phase consisting of larger houses of a similar plan, largely built into midden material and connected by roofed passageways. The sea wall has been augmented at intervals since the 1920s, with repair and maintenance ongoing, and a rolling programme of sea wall toe reinforcement extension works to enhance footing constructed in the 1980s. The current WHS Management Plan covers the period 2014–19 and notes the increasing threat posed to the site by climate change, and by rising sea levels in particular. In January 2018 HES published the first phase of our climate change risk assessment project, detailing the risk to our properties in care from natural hazards such as flooding and coastal erosion. The project was carried out in partnership with the British Geological Survey and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. Of the sites analysed, we found 31 at high or very high risk of coastal flooding, and 24 sites at high or very high risk of coastal erosion. With many of HES’ sites situated on the coast, these results were expected but it came as a surprise to some that Skara Brae was not identified as being at high risk. This is a reflection of the nature of the coastal erosion dataset used, and the fact that the site has been protected by a sea wall for nearly 100 years. Since this initial analysis, further opportunities have arisen for us to explore the processes ongoing at this site and new climate projection data is now available. A major research project commissioned by Scottish Government and funded by Scotland’s Centre of Expertise for Waters (CREW), entitled Dynamic Coast: Scotland’s National Coastal Change Assessment, began in response to risks identified in the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (UK-CCRA). Dynamic Coast has mapped coastal change in Scotland over the last hundred years or so, in the process developing a deep understanding of past change and current vulnerability. The project aims to aid relevant authorities in identifying parts of the coast that may require additional support. The identification of susceptible assets will help inform the development of plans robustly based on a strategic, objective and publicly available evidence base (DynamicCoast.com). HES has been heavily involved in this project from its inception and sits on the steering group ensuring that the historic environment is fully incorporated within the project. This has enabled us to deepen our understanding of coastal change at many sites, including those in our care. In the Bay of Skaill, examination of data from Ordnance Survey mapping indicates that the average height of spring tides (or ‘mean high A deviation map created from laser scans of Skara Brae, its sea wall and environs, comparing data from 2010 and 2018 to identify coastal change and current vulnerabilities (Photo: Historic Environment Scotland).
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