Part of a Bronze Age settlement was uncovered at Must Farm quarry, at

Whittlesey Whittlesey (also Whittlesea) is a market town and civil parish in the Fenland district of Cambridgeshire, England. Whittlesey is east of Peterborough. The population of the parish was 16,058 at the 2011 Census. History and architecture W ...

, near

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

, in

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

, England. The site has been described as "Britain's

Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...

" due to its relatively good condition, including the "best-preserved

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

dwellings ever found" there, which all appear to have been abandoned suddenly following a catastrophic fire. Research now suggests that the site was less than one year old at the time of destruction. The site is on the bed of a now-defunct river in

Flag Fen Flag Fen, east of Peterborough, Pryor 2005. p. 9. England, is a Bronze Age site which was constructed about 3500 years ago and consists of more than 60,000 timbers arranged in five very long rows, creating a wooden causeway (around 1 km lo ...

basin, around south of Flag Fen itself. Must Farm was named Best Archaeological Project and Best Archaeological Discovery at the 2012 British Archaeological Awards, and Best Discovery at the 2016 Awards. An article describing the settlement won the '' Antiquity'' Prize 2020.

Early excavations

Wooden posts were first recognised at the site in 1999, leading to preliminary excavations in 2004 and 2006. Early finds at the site include a

rapier A rapier () or is a type of sword with a slender and sharply-pointed two-edged blade that was popular in Western Europe, both for civilian use (dueling and self-defense) and as a military side arm, throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. Impor ...

and a

sword A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed ti ...

in 1969. Between 2011 and 2012, eight

log boats were discovered. The boats were found in a small freshwater

palaeochannel A palaeochannel, also spelt paleochannel and also known as palaeovalley or palaeoriver, is a geological term describing a remnant of an inactive river or stream channel that has been filled or buried by younger sediment. The sediments that the ...

and were preserved due to waterlogging.

Radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

has indicated that the ages of these boats spanned a period of about 1,000 years, with the earliest examples dating to around 1750–1650

BCE Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...

. Some of the boats may have been deliberately sunk. They are now preserved at Flag Fen and are available to view on guided tours. Bronze Age woven wooden

fish trap A fish trap is a trap used for fishing. Fish traps include fishing weirs, lobster traps, and some fishing nets such as fyke nets. Traps are culturally almost universal and seem to have been independently invented many times. There are two main ...

s and wattle-hurdle

fish weir A fishing weir, fish weir, fishgarth or kiddle is an obstruction placed in tidal waters, or wholly or partially across a river, to direct the passage of, or trap fish. A weir may be used to trap marine fish in the intertidal zone as the tide reced ...

s were found in the same channel, together with metalwork including swords and

spear A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fasten ...

2015/2016 excavation

In September 2015, the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

's Cambridge Archaeological Unit began a

dig Digging, also referred to as excavation, is the process of using some implement such as claws, hands, manual tools or heavy equipment, to remove material from a solid surface, usually soil, sand or rock (geology), rock on the surface of Earth. Di ...

, eventually covering , the details of which were publicly disclosed in January 2016.

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

funded a £1.1 million project to excavate the site to gain as much knowledge of Bronze Age life in Britain as possible. Archaeologists found two roundhouses, from about 1000–800 BCE, and concluded that they were damaged by fire and that the platform on which they sat then slid into the river, where the fire was extinguished and the buildings and objects within them were preserved in the

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel when ...

. About half of the settlement is thought to have been lost due to modern-day quarrying. Objects recovered include pots still containing food, textiles woven from

lime tree ''Tilia'' is a genus of about 30 species of trees or bushes, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The tree is known as linden for the European species, and basswood for North American species. In Britain and Ireland they ...

bark and other

plant fibre Fiber crops are field crops grown for their fibers, which are traditionally used to make paper, cloth, or rope. Fiber crops are characterized by having a large concentration of cellulose, which is what gives them their strength. The fibers may b ...

s, sections of wattle walls, and

glass bead Glass bead making has long traditions, with the oldest known beads dating over 3,000 years. Glass beads have been dated back to at least Roman times. Perhaps the earliest glass-like beads were Egyptian faience beads, a form of clay bead with a ...

s. In 2016 a large wooden wheel of about in diameter was uncovered at the site. The specimen, dating from 1,100 to 800 years BCE, represents the most complete and earliest of its type found in Britain. The wheel's hub is also present. A horse's spine found nearby suggests the wheel may have been part of a horse-drawn cart. The find "expands our understanding of late Bronze Age technology", said Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, which was co-funding the project. , the archaeology had been removed and the site reburied to be left sealed. In 2019 researchers at Cambridge and Bristol universities revealed the results of a study of human and dog

coprolite A coprolite (also known as a coprolith) is fossilized feces. Coprolites are classified as trace fossils as opposed to body fossils, as they give evidence for the animal's behaviour (in this case, diet) rather than morphology. The name is de ...

s found at the site. They discovered the presence of fish tapeworms, echinostoma worms, capillaria worms and giant kidney worms. The research shows the earliest evidence of human infection by these parasites in Britain. The dig was the subject of a

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

documentary, ''Britain's Pompeii: A Village Lost in Time'', first broadcast on

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

on 2 August 2016. The excavation became known for its extensive digital outreach.

Artefacts

These artefacts from Must Farm were photographed at

Peterborough Museum Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

in July 2017: File:cmglee_Must_Farm_shears.jpg, A pair of shears and its wooden box File:cmglee_Must_Farm_bones.jpg, Fish bones and scales File:cmglee_Must_Farm_trap.jpg, Remains of an eel trap File:cmglee_Must_Farm_boat.jpg, Remains of a boat File:cmglee_Must_Farm_swords.jpg, Iron and Bronze Age swords File:cmglee_Must_Farm_dagger.jpg, A dagger, a ring and tips of swords File:cmglee_Must_Farm_axes.jpg, Axe heads File:cmglee_Must_Farm_pot.jpg, A storage vessel

References

External links

*{{Official website
Podcast about the site
by

Dan Snow Daniel Robert Snow (born 3 December 1978) is a British popular historian and television presenter. Early life and education Born in Westminster, London Dan Snow is the youngest son of Peter Snow, BBC television journalist, and Canadian Ann Mac ...

MP3
4m 31s, 6.3Mb)
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2015 in England Bronze Age sites in Cambridgeshire History of the University of Cambridge