The oldest known evidence of human habitation on the Orkney Islands, the archipelago off the northern coast of Scotland, is a charred hazelnut shell and some thousands of flint fragments, variously dated to either the seventh or eighth millennium BCE. That’s a long time ago. A dang long time. Later evidence is more impressive, standing henges and stone farmsteads, but those simple tools confirm that humans first came to Orkney not long after the glaciers receded to hunt, forage, and eventually heap together so much garbage (mostly shells) that later generations would repurpose the refuse into the foundations for their settlements.

Skara Brae, named for the largest of those settlements, is another historical title by Shem Phillips. I’ll confess I went into Phillips’ latest with some reluctance after Ezra and Nehemiah showed such a lack of care for its history. To my relief, Skara Brae is on surer footing, opening a limited but compelling window onto the daily lives of its characters.

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