Orkney Islands - 12

The village of Skara Brae was inhabited before the Egyptian pyramids were built, and flourished many centuries before construction began at Stonehenge. It is some 5,000 years old.

But it is not its age alone that makes it so remarkable and so important. It is the degree to which it has been preserved.

The structures of this semi-subterranean village survive in impressive condition. And so, amazingly, does the furniture in the village houses. Nowhere else in northern Europe are we able to see such rich evidence of how our remote ancestors actually lived.