archaeologist nick card is responsible for excavating the mess of brodgar, which is no small task. ig that even, you know, this trench behind us, it's still only about 10% of the whole area. wow! so what we're doing is just gradually unpicking it, trying to refine the chronology, seeing how all these buildings relate to each other, which ones were in use at the same time, and taking thousands of samples to try and work out how these buildings were actually utilised. the site is open forjust eight weeks a year and requires the hard work of dozens of volunteers. right, christa, here we have the remains, and you can see the outer wall of a really large building in front of norman and ray here. oh, yeah — it goes all the way over there. tracking right round. a huge curving wall. i have a trowel. i've got one ready for you — yes, a key tool, yes — and we're going to get into the trench and we're just going to clean back from the outer face of that wall, and just gently clean back, scrape back, to reveal the paving, 0k? amazing. so let's get in and see. we're crouched over an old pathway

archaeologist nick card is responsible for excavating the mess of brodgar. h other, which ones were in use at the same time, and taking thousands of samples to try and work out how these buildings were actually utilised. the site is open forjust eight weeks a year and requires the hard work of dozens of volunteers. right, christa, here we have the remains, and you can see the outer wall of a really large building in front of norman and ray here. oh, yeah — it goes all the way over there. tracking right round. i have a trowel. i've got one ready for you — yes, a key tool, yes — and we're going to get into the trench and we're just going to clean back from the outer face of that wall, and just gently clean back, scrape back, to reveal the paving, ok? amazing. so let's get in and see. we're crouched over an old pathway and slowly, as we scrape away the soil, the ancient paving stones are revealed. it's fascinating to think that the last humans to touch these stones were people living up to five millennia ago. what is that? i think that's a fragment of burnt bone