Archaeologists discover 'finest ever' piece of Neolithic art...3,500BC (Scotland)

Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 8-1-2013 | Mark Duell

[Renfield]

Archaeologists have found an astonishing piece of Neolithic artwork that was buried for 4,500 years.

The stone creation - which is decorated on both sides and has been described as one of the ‘finest ever’ to be found in Britain - was uncovered last night on the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney, Scotland.

It was found at the base of the south-west internal corner of the Neolithic ‘cathedral’ at the site, which covers 2.5 hectares and is believed to have been occupied from as early as 3,500BC....

[blam]

People have lived on the Orkneys so long that there is a DNA marker that is peculiar to the Orkneys.

[Texas Songwriter]

Don't pick the Queen of Diamonds, she'll beat you if she's able.

The Queen of Hearts is always your best bet.

[Average Al]

"It’s not exactly the Mona Lisa... :-) It is cool, though."

Come on! I've seen better "art" scratched on the ground by chickens! ;-)

[vrwc1]

Diamonds? Maybe. Or perhaps something more sophisticated. Looks like a 3 dimensional drawing of parallel planes to me.

[Windflier]

You should see what the Egyptians were doing 5000 years ago, or Gobekli Tepe in Turkey long before that.

Or Puma Punku in Bolivia. The building (and destruction) of that place defies rational explanation. We can hardly do that sort of work today.

[Tucker39]

Thanx. I’ll keep that in mind.
You gotta’ know when ta’ hold ‘em.....

[calex59]

Long before these people, cave men were doing beautiful paintings on the walls of caves and they call this a beautiful example of neolithic art, I don’t want to see ugly examples then.

[OldNewYork]

Interesting.

[GeronL]

“finest ever”?

They were all 3?

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Art or geometry? Scottish Pre-Euclidian Euclidians?

[Flag_This]

"Or Puma Punku in Bolivia. The building (and destruction) of that place defies rational explanation. We can hardly do that sort of work today."

I've always found Puma Punku and Tiwanaku fascinating. Using Google Earth you can see so much terracing that was done in the surrounding mountains - makes me think there must have been a much larger population to require it at one time.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Renfield.

[null and void]

Temple? This is Scotland. It’s a Neolithic distillery.

As you say, it's a temple...

[Fred Nerks]

Carved Stone Balls found at Skara Brae, Orkney.

GOOGLE IMAGES

[colorado tanker]

The main Orkneys form Scapa Flow, one of the finest natural anchorages in the world. People have been sailing to and from the Orkneys for a very long time.

[Grimmy]

Looks to me like a “coach’s board”, probably for neolithic gridiron football.

The first pic is the offense vs defense line. The lighter scratches are what the backfield is going to be doing.

The second pic is, obviously, 3 offensive linemen leading the block on a sweep with the linebacker and free safety as the objects to be blocked.

[central_va]

Stone balls? Ship them to congress.