Howe Broch
Howe of Stromness Broch · The Howe
Neolithic 3500 BCE to Norse 1200 CE with broch Iron Age focus·Neolithic Grooved Ware to Iron Age broch to Norse·🇬🇧 Scotland, Orkney, Mainland Orkney, Stromness, United Kingdom
About
About Howe Broch
5-m thick drystone wall and central hearth, then wheelhouse and Viking farm. Excavated 1978-1982 by Beverley Ballin Smith, the 14-m diameter broch preserves intact doorway with bar-holes and intramural gallery, and overlies an Early Iron Age roundhouse destroyed by broch construction, giving rare direct broch-over-roundhouse stratigraphic replacement. The mound's 7 m stratigraphy is the type-section for Orkney Atlantic Iron Age ceramic sequence from Vaul ware to Hebridean ware.
Howe broch is less visited than Gurness or Midhowe but more complete stratigraphically, linking Orkney broch phenomenon to preceding settlement.
Why it mattersType-section for Orkney Atlantic Iron Age spanning Neolithic to Norse (7 m) and rare broch-over-roundhouse stratigraphic replacement.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Why broch replaced earlier roundhouse - defence vs status
Theories
- 01Howe 7-m sequence as Orkney ceramic chronology backbone
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.500 BCE - 100 CE broch; underlying Neolithic 3500 BCE with Bronze and Viking
- Period
- Neolithic 3500 BCE to Norse 1200 CE with broch Iron Age focus
- Culture
- Neolithic Grooved Ware to Iron Age broch to Norse
- Builders
- Orkney Atlantic Iron Age communities
- Purpose
- Broch defended farmstead and earlier settlement mound with later wheelhouse/Viking
- Abandoned
- c.1200 CE Norse farm abandonment
- Rediscovered
- 1978 Ballin Smith excavation; 1994 monograph
- Excavation
- Excavated
3500 BCE
Neolithic settlement basal
500 BCE
Broch construction over roundhouse
1982
Excavation reveals 7-m stratigraphic type-section
On the ground
Structures & features
58.9900° N · 3.3100° W · 35 m · 2 mapped features
Broch Tower
broch14-m broch with 2.5-m gallery wall and doorway bar-holes
58.9900° N · 3.3100° WNeolithic Basal Settlement
habitation3500 BCE Grooved Ware settlement under broch mound
58.9910° N · 3.3110° W
Gallery