5,000 years ago the remote islands of Orkney were a great centre of the Stone Age World, boasting connections that stretched across the length and breadth of Britain, Ireland and beyond. And yet, despite its fame and popularity today, there is still so much about Neolithic Orkney that remains shrouded in mystery. In this documentary Tristan Hughes investigates Orkney’s enigmatic Neolithic past. Crawling into 5,000 year old tombs and digging deep into one of the greatest archaeological excavations currently underway on the British Isles, he explores this extraordinary period of Scotland's prehistory.
Hidden away beneath a large slab of stone in an ancient tomb, lies one of the most exciting discoveries of the last five years - beautiful carvings of adult red deer, the first animal representations in Scotland. This is just one of the remarkable finds in one of the most extraordinary prehistoric landscapes in Scotland: the magical and mysterious Kilmartin Glen.
All across northern Scotland, you can still see the skeletal remains of prehistoric skyscrapers. Unique to Scotland, these enigmatic Iron Age towers are called brochs. 2,500 years ago, these drystone structures dominated the Highlands and Islands, yet so much of their story remains shrouded in mystery. Join Tristan Hughes as he ventures across northern Scotland to investigate these extraordinary ancient buildings, seeing some spectacular scenery along the way: from the western Highlands to Orkney.