This morning we visited Jarlshof, a beautiful site near Sumburgh Head on the southern tip of Mainland, Shetland. We were treated to warm summer weather on the drive down from Lerwick where the M/S Endeavour lay alongside the quay. Jarlshof has been occupied intensively for at least the last 5000 to 6000 years. The earliest houses date from the Bronze Age and are dated by pottery to earlier than 2500 B.C. The Bronze Age village contains a smithy and several houses. Nearby is another village dating from the Iron Age, which has revealed many artifacts indicating the lifestyle of these farming and fishing people. Next came a well preserved broch and its associated round houses and courtyard. Then wheelhouses (pictured) were added as living quarters. About 800 A.D. the Norse arrived at the site and built their characteristic rectangular houses, the foundations of which still remain. The Norse probably occupied the site until late in the 13th century and many artifacts from that period have been uncovered as well. The Norse community was replaced eventually by a Medieval farmhouse dating to the 14th and 15th centuries. Finally in the late 15th century when Shetland came under Scottish control a laird’s house was built on the site and lasted until the end of the 17th century.
This remarkable walk through 6000 years of occupation at the site can be easily accomplished in an hour or two and we still had time to pet the Shetland ponies and visit the bird cliffs of Sumburgh Head before returning to the M/S Endeavour for lunch.
