The People of Orkney

This is one of the most comprehensive books ever written about the Orkney Islands, covering their archaeology and history, and the characteristics and way of life of the island people through the centuries. It is the result of a combined effort of a team of scholars from various disciplines, in which the Orcadians themselves also play a significant part, as they do in the many photographs of island life that fill the pages.

Situated between the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, the Orkney Islands have long held a key position on the trade-routes of north-west Europe, and a series of the well-known peoples of history have come as settlers - Neolithic builders of stone tombs and circles, Iron Age warrior cheiftans, the Picts who withstood Roman power, marauding Vikings, and the ill-fated Scottish Stewart family and their followers. Their visible marks left behind form the rich collection of buildings that we see today, from Maeshowe and Skara Brae to St Magnus Cathedral. But does any trace of these peoples themselves still remain, in the blood or way of life of the present-day islanders?

In this book a major new attempt is made to analyse the origins and characteristics of the people of Orkney, by bringing together a wide spread of different disciplines to bear on the problem. The fields range from archaeology and history to anthropology and genetics, and the conclusion is that the modern Orcadians do indeed to some extent carry within them a recognisable inheritance from the past. They may indeed, on the basis of certain anomalous blood-group frequencies, contain the remnants of an ancient European population which now only survives in a few other isolated outposts, in islands or mountain valleys.

Evidence of much continuity of daily life in Orkney through the ages comes in a comprehensive and highly lucid survey of their wealth of archeaological sites, and the finds that range from necklaces of eagles' talons to ornaments of jet and gold. The builders of the high broch towers are identified as one of the most powerful groups in Iron Age Scotland, and new evidence is put forward to show how some of their customs may have survived in Orkney in modified form well into historic times. The structure of Viking society is reassessed, and the contribution of Orkney to the northern renaissance of the 12th century described, along with the eventual warning of the Norse earldom and the arrival of land-owning families from mainland Scotland.

Through it all, however, the spirit and the character of the Orcadians survives undeterred, though a warning is sounded about the problems posed by the threat of the homogenising influences of the 20th century. A feature of the book is its many photographs of island life, around the shores and on the fields and in the homes of the people of Orkney.