Re: Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets Of Orkney | Forum

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Evergreen Dazed Jan 10, 2017 13:46:44

Replying to CARL

Who is the fair haired bloke? He did the rock stack thing on last weeks and built the boat in this weeks.
He said that if they manage to sail across the pentland firth in that boat that it would "fill a gap in the archaeological record". He actually said those words.

What a twonk.
Who is editing this program, mickey fucking mouse?

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tomatoman Jan 10, 2017 13:47:32

Replying to CARL

Mixed feelings about some of the content of episode 2. I personally hope that we've heard the last from Andy Torbet, although I doubt it.........typical of his type in contributing a lot less than he seems to believe. BUT, all credit to the Orkney teams who actually built the coracle-boat AND rowed it across the Firth in what were, mercifully, benign conditions.
The possible interpretation of the co-placement of human and non-human remains was intriguing.
So........do you think the "multi-skilled" team concept works, or not?

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drewbhoy Jan 10, 2017 13:48:55

Replying to CARL

CARL wrote:

I enjoyed episode 2 although not as much as the first episode. It had a bit of a 'filler' feel to it although I thought the boat making experiment was very interesting. Hopefully the 3rd episode will finish on a high! Still the best programme on TV at the moment! :)

Yup loads of filler. The boat making and sailing was very good as was the whales and the Tomb Of Eagles. One bone found at the Ness is a leap of faith to compare it with the Tomb Of Eagles but maybe episode 3 will have more to say on the matter.

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ironstone Jan 12, 2017 12:46:42

Replying to CARL

But they still haven't addressed much less answered my question; how big was the population at this time? To have built that huge complex at The Ness, even allowing for it to have taken many years, must have required a significant number of people drawn from all over the islands where the nearest discovered settlements (Barnhouse and Skara Brae) would have only housed a relatively small number of people. I'm just wondering if the population then was notably greater than now (approx 20,000, I think). The point may be a fairly arcane one but I'm surprised it hasn't been raised (yet......)

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tjj Jan 12, 2017 13:22:54

Replying to CARL

CARL wrote:

I enjoyed episode 2 although not as much as the first episode. It had a bit of a 'filler' feel to it although I thought the boat making experiment was very interesting. Hopefully the 3rd episode will finish on a high! Still the best programme on TV at the moment! :)

My initial thoughts were much as yours Carl as had only watched the first half of this week's episode. However, have just watched the rest of it and felt I learnt quite a lot from the section on the Tomb of Eagles. In fact it was fascinating - Neil Oliver has the gravitas when it comes the archaeology side of things. The boat experiment was interesting inasmuch it informs us that some the ancient Orkadians must have had supreme knowledge of the tides. As Neil Oliver pointed out at the end the programme Andy Torbet and his crew did actually manage to pick an almost unheard of, rare calm day to cross the Pentland Firth - sort of gently stopped Andy Torbet from being too self congratulationary.