Summary of Matthew Green's Shadowlands

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 A storm in 1850 killed two hundred people in the British Isles. The archipelago was a relatively new addition to the UK, having been annexed from Norway in the sixteenth century. The wind’s destructive force also proved an impetus of discovery, as some of the villagers who lived on the western coast of Orkney discovered a five-thousand-year-old settlement at the Bay of Skaill.

#2 In 1850, a storm in the British Isles killed two hundred people. The archipelago was a relatively new addition to the UK, having been annexed from Norway in the sixteenth century. The wind’s destructive force also proved an impetus of discovery, as some of the villagers who lived on the western coast of Orkney discovered a five-thousand-year-old settlement at the Bay of Skaill.

#3 In 1850, a storm in the British Isles killed two hundred people. The archipelago was a relatively new addition to the UK, having been annexed from Norway in the sixteenth century. The wind’s destructive force also proved an impetus of discovery, as some of the villagers who lived on the western coast of Orkney discovered a five-thousand-year-old settlement at the Bay of Skaill.

#4 In 1850, a storm in the British Isles killed two hundred people. The archipelago was a relatively new addition to the UK, having been annexed from Norway in the sixteenth century. The wind’s destructive force also proved an impetus of discovery, as some of the villagers who lived on the western coast of Orkney discovered a five-thousand-year-old settlement at the Bay of Skaill.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Oct 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798350040074

IRB Media

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Insights on Matthew Green's Shadowlands

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In late November 1850, the British Isles were rocked by one of the worst storms in decades. It devastated one of the remotest parts of the British Isles: a barren, virtually treeless, gently undulating landscape kissed by the midnight sun in midsummer, yet which at that time of year had some of the longest nights in the country.

#2

The Scottish professor who was to become the father of modern archaeology, Gordon Childe, was not the best-looking man. He spoke seventeen languages and was hoping to learn an eighteenth before the year was out. He was astringent and hurtful, with an abrupt and alarming manner that almost everyone found objectionable.

#3

The site was not excavated properly in 1913, when a group of semi-drunken guests dug it up with shovels and brought home a welter of historically significant artifacts. In 1924, another violent storm washed away one of the houses, highlighting the urgency of protecting and documenting the site.

#4

The site of Skara Brae, in Scotland, was excavated by Childe in the 1930s. The ruins and relics threw a vivid light on the life of prehistoric man in these islands.

#5

The settlement of Skara Brae in Scotland looks like a crazy golf course, but it is actually the remains of a prehistoric settlement. It was here that Neolithic Orcadians kept the cold, wind, rain, sleet, and snow at bay, and they lay low when unidentified vessels or perhaps marauders passed by.

#6

The site of Skara Brae is a palimpsest of prehistoric domesticity. There were four distinct phases of occupation, with never more than a dozen houses at any one time. The settlement was never a population of more than a hundred people.

#7

The original village of Skara Brae was built on top of a mound of organic waste from the pre-existing, agrarian settlement. The Orcadians’ houses were free-standing but they became semi-subterranean as the infill took its toll.

#8

The underground passages that connected the houses to the midden were a perfect way of navigating the subterranean world of Skara Brae. They were a perfect way of integrating the settlement into its environment.

#9

The houses at Skara Brae were all similar in design, and they were bigger than we might expect. The beds were recessed into the walls, but they projected inwards towards the fire with their frontal slab doubling up as a seat. The inhabitants burned heather, bracken, dried seaweed, whalebone, and dung.

#10

The best-preserved house is House 7, which is shut off to the public. It was in existence for the final three phases of Skara Brae’s existence, and it is thought to be the oldest surviving building. It was built on virgin soil rather than the refuse of earlier settlements.

#11

The spirits of the two women may have been used to sustain House 7, and they may have been buried there after death. However, they may have been sacrificed or even buried alive, as this was the tradition in other prehistoric cultures.

#12

The so-called House 8 was a