Orkney and The Queen

Stump's Travel Log

When an itinerary is as packed as the one for this trip is, you expect that some unexpected things are going to happen. In yesterday’s update, I said we were taking a train, then going to fly, then take a boat… well the train part went OK. But the flying was delayed by a “hydraulic issue” and heavy rain all across the UK (I don’t think the captain was equating the hydraulic issue with the rain, though I suppose he could have been). So after boarding the plane, then sitting for an hour, we un-boarded the plane. By the time boarded another and flew to Aberdeen, our boat had left the harbor. So we spent the night in Aberdeen and took another plane to Kirkwall on the Orkney Islands this morning.

We rented a car and drove around to a bunch of Neolithic sites on the island. It turns out that 5000 years ago there were about 10,000 people living on this windswept archipelago, and they left some tantalizing traces behind. So this was the beginning of my quest to understand something about the development of spiritual capacities in our species. It was fun to have the other BioLogicians here too, and we had a gorgeous day (which our taxi driver said happens only one out of seven).

So everyone knows Stonehenge, down in England. The circles of standing stones up here are 1000 years older, and the circles are much bigger. This one (photo below) at Brogdar has a diameter of about 100 meters, and the stones are all exactly 6 degrees apart, and there are various ways that they line up with the setting or rising sun on the equinoxes. What does this say about the spiritual capacities of these Neolithic people? Hard to say.

We definitely got the sense that the stone circle and the henge around it (which is a another circle of mounded earth) was a kind of sacred space. Maybe that’s just us, reading our own experience and expectations into it. But these structures seem to me something like cathedrals in the Middle Ages. They took enormous amounts of time and energy to construct over many generations, with no obvious utility for the survival of the species — aside from the cooperation it engendered. But maybe that’s at least part of the point. Perhaps our spiritual longings led to us becoming more deeply committed to each other’s good. It takes a village (and a generation) to move a few six-ton slabs of rock from the sea shore some ten miles away.

The BioLogicians at the Ring of Brodgar. Photo credit: a nice lady who was walking by.

This next photo is of Maeshowe chambered cairn. It is also about 5000 years old, and served as a tomb. There are a bunch of these around Orkney, built up out of really big stone slabs, and covered with clay and grass. Our guide said that some graduate students were recruited to see how feasible it was to build this with Stone Age technology: maybe be they brought some tree trunks from the mainland (there are precious few trees here) to roll the stones on, using seaweed for lubricant. They estimated that it took at least a hundred thousand person-hours. And we assume that they didn’t have much specialization of labor, so most of the time you’d have to spend trying to stay alive on this island. So let’s say 100 people came together for a couple of weeks every winter solstice (the opening of this cairn is lined up perfectly with the setting sun on that day) to brings the stones. That would take twelve and a half years just to bring the stones. I’d guess that such an endeavor would lead you toward greater levels of cooperation at the very least.

Maeshowe Chambered Cairn

We also went to Skara Brae, which is a village that has been uncovered from the same time period. It consisted of about 10 stone structures covered in stone and earth, probably with a thatched section of the roof to let out smoke from the hearth and let in some light. Probably 100 people lived here, and there are remains of a bunch of other such settlements around the islands. What we these people doing here, and then why did they leave? Hard to say. But it was really cool to see and imagine ourselves into their worlds.

Skara Brae. Photo credit: that’s my shadow holding up the phone.

Of course the big news around here (and around the world) in the last 24 hours was the death of Queen Elizabeth. We were in Aberdeen airport when the news came out, which is 40 miles away from Balmoral Castle, where she died.

Doing anything for 70 years is pretty impressive (like building a tomb!). Being the monarch of England for that long is really amazing. My wife and I have really enjoyed Netflix’s “The Crown” which gives an entertaining glimpse (I won’t say it’s a documentary!) into her life. If it can be believed at all, she had a lot of integrity and at least some version of authentic Christian faith. And she at least understood her role to be serving the people in her realm.

There are precious few signs that the people on Orkney 5000 years ago had much of a hierarchical structure. I sometimes wonder whether monarchs, alpha males (or females), and other non-egalitarian political structures are a hold over from our evolutionary origins. Orkney seems to suggest that we could have been on that path much earlier than has actually happened. I don’t quite understand the power or authority of the British monarch these days. But it seems a lot less absolute than it used to be, and I have a lot of respect for Elizabeth and her reign. I’m not too sure about the future of the British monarchy… and it’s going to seem really weird changing their national anthem to “God Save the King.” Rest In Peace, Elizabeth.

Allison with a couple of mementoes in Aberdeen from this solemn day.