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Mysteries come in many forms: ancient, modern, unsolved, and unexplained. But the world's most mysterious buildings are a physical force to be reckoned with. They've become popularized on websites full of user-generated and editor-curated like Abandoned-places.com, weburbanist.com, and AtlasObscura.com, an exhaustive database of the unusual. "In an age where it sometimes seems like there's nothing left to discover, our site is for people who still believe in exploration," says AtlasObscura.com cofounder Joshua Foer. Our definition of mysterious is broad and varied. Some buildings on our list are being eaten alive by the earth, such as a lava-buried church in the...

Footsteps from the past: the ancient village of Skara Brae CAROLINE WICKHAM-JONES SCOTLAND'S towns and settlements are proud of their roots, but few can boast the antiquity of Skara Brae on the Orkney Islands. Originally built around 3100BC to house a small group of Neolithic farming families, the abandoned houses with their stone dressers, beds and hearths provide a remarkable glimpse of a lifestyle that has long disappeared. Of course the village developed slowly, as any village today, but Skara Brae is notable for the quality of its remains. The historic site still provides a powerful message, even for the...

Crannogs were fortified settlements constructed on artificial islands in lochs. It was thought they were first built in the Iron Age, a period that began around 800 BC. But four Western Isles sites have been radiocarbon dated to about 3640-3360 BC in the Neolithic period - before the erection of Stonehenge's stone circle... Another famous Neolithic site is Skara Brae, a village in Orkney inhabited between 3200 BC and 2200 BC... They said it was possible other Scottish crannogs, and similar sites in Ireland, were also Neolithic. Previously it was thought crannogs were built and re-used over a period of...

The site, known as the Ness of Brodgar, was investigated by BBC2 documentary A History of Ancient Britain, with presenter Neil Oliver describing it as 'the discovery of a lifetime'. So far the remains of 14 Stone Age buildings have been excavated, but thermal geophysics technology has revealed that there are 100 altogether, forming a kind of temple precinct. Until now Stonehenge was considered to have been the centre of Neolithic culture, but that title may now go to the Orkney site, which contains Britain's earliest known wall paintings. Oliver said: 'The excavation of a vast network of buildings on...

Was Orkney the ceremonial capital of ancient Britain? STEPHEN STEWART November 03 2003 ORKNEY may have been the largest prehistoric settlement or ceremonial site in Britain, new research reveals today. Archaeologists using the latest techniques to map under the soil discovered the world heritage site covering the Ness of Brodgar in Stenness, was a massive centre of activity in Stone Age times. Orkney's landscape has largely managed to avoid the rigours of industrialised farming and may yet yield its secrets about the recently-surveyed site, which in terms of scale, puts the likes of Stonehenge, Avebury and Skara Brae in the...