These are not the conditions under which complex or unusual funerary practices would be surprising.

On the contrary: communities with this level of social complexity, with these connections across large areas, and with the architectural investment in significant structures that brochs represent, are exactly the kinds of communities that would be expected to develop and maintain sophisticated relationships with their dead.

The elaborateness of the treatment documented at Loch Borralie — the skull work, the bone modification, the careful reassembly — is consistent with a community that valued complexity, invested in significant undertakings, and understood the handling of important individuals’ remains as a task worthy of care and attention.

The Scapula Evidence