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Brochs Formidable Iron Age strongholds - they were built in numbers across northern Scotland for about 300 years, then suddenly fell out of use. The Brochs were symbols of both defence and prestige. They suggest a time when localised defences against raiders were necessary and it became necessary for people to look to powerfull individuals to protect them. It was also a time when communal burials became less common and rich farmers or chieftains were buried individually with precious objects to show their status. Although the Brochs fell out of use relatively quickly, the communities which prospered around them did not. In Orkney alone there are over 120 brochs, with 500 to be found across Scotland. The Broch of Gurness - Orkney - Factsheet The Broch of Gurness is a stalwart Iron Age fortress situated on Aikerness Peninsula on the main island of Orkney. It was designed to protect a prosperous farming community from raiding warriors, who might have stolen their cattle, land or even enslaved the villagers of Gurness. Raiding was probably infrequent, and for the most part the Broch was built to be an impressive symbol of prestige for the chieftain who lived there - just like the later medieval towerhouses found all over Scotland. The Gurness site was 45m across and encircled by a protective ditch with high stone walls - breached only in one place by an entrance causeway. In the centre of the site stood the Broch: a high stone tower of eight to ten metres tall, and 20m in diameter. This would have been the house of the local chieftain, surrounded by his followers. They were farmers, living off the harvests of land and sea, spinning and weaving, as well as trading across Scotland and perhaps further afield. Iron Age Orkney wasn’t an isolated place. In 325 BC the Greek writer Pytheas mentioned the ‘Orcas’, showing that it was known as far away as the eastern Mediterranean. After about 100 AD the Brochs seem to have fallen out of fashion. Perhaps they were no longer useful as the tribes of Scotland faced a new threat from the Roman Empire. At Gurness the western wall of the broch collapsed, which was repaired eventually, but a declining village population and a further collapse led to it being abandoned. By the 4th and 5th Centuries patterns of farming had changed in Orkney. Its Iron Age tribes had become part of the Pictish nation. They lived in farmsteads across the Orcadian landscape - one shamrock-shaped farm being built right next to the Broch of Gurness. By 800 AD in the Orkneys, Pictish farmers faced a new threat. The Vikings started to invade and settle. One of them, a Viking woman, was buried in pagan style near the Broch, complete with elaborate brooches to accompany her in the afterlife.