With the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east, the archipelagos of Shetland and Orkney have been inhabited since at least the 7th millennium BCE. Their rich archaeological record includes extraordinary array of neolithic farmsteads and tombs, Bronze Age stone circles, Iron Age brochs, and Viking settlements. Orkney contains some Europe’s oldest and best preserved neolithic sites, and the collection of these known as the ‘Heart of Neolithic Orkney’ is UNESCO World Heritage Listed: the chambered cairn and passage grave of Maeshowe, the Standing Stones of Stenness, the vast Ring of Brodgar and the extraordinary Neolithic Village of Scara Brae. St Ninian’s Isle Treasure is a rare survivor of exquisite Early Medieval Pictish silverwork, and the Viking past is revealed at Shetland’s Jarlshof.
These remote islands are havens to vast colonies of seabirds that nest along towering coastal cliffs: Storm Petrel, Arctic Skua, Arctic Tern, Puffins and Kittiwakes are some of the many seabird species that breed in the Northern Isles in the summer months. Otters, seals and porpoises are amongst the resident sea mammals, while orcas can be regularly spotted off the coast.
