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| Close-up of post-excavation plan showing the positions of Structures 1,2,4 and 5 (c) Must Farm Website |
Introduction
In previous posts I have written
about the Must Farm Bronze Age settlement in Cambridgeshire, in Britain. Now
that the results of post-excavation analysis have been published, it is an
opportune time to revisit this amazing archaeological site.
Must Farm pile dwelling
settlement, Vols 1 and 2, highlight the wonderful and, in many ways,
unparalleled archaeology of the Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement. It provides
an account of life in a damp but extremely well-connected setting on the
northwest fringes of Europe nearly 3000 years ago.
Must Farm is the most completely preserved prehistoric settlement in Britain and has been called Britain’s Pompeii. It has provided a unique insight into the lives of people towards the end of the Bronze Age. The excavation of the Must Farm settlement challenges many of our ideas about the material worlds that people inhabited, shedding new light on aspects of architecture, food, woodland management, landscape change, and wetland living.
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| A 3D model of one of Must Farm's large storage vessels Photo: (c) Must Farm Website |
The settlement comprised a
palisade enclosing five stilt-raised houses. It was built in the mid-9th
century BC and destroyed by fire less than a year after construction. The
occupants escaped but the remains of all five buildings and their artefact-rich
contents collapsed into the riverbed. It is currently the only Late Bronze Age
pile-dwelling settlement known in Britain.
Five Structures
The technique of pile-driving
would have been well-known to the fen-dwellers, but this method of construction
is not common in other wetland settlements on the British mainland. Each
roundhouse consisted of a circular space with a hearth, the household’s primary
source of light, at its centre. Archaeologists believe that the hearth may have
been suspended above the floor by a clay-built ‘plate’ or ‘box’ set beneath a
clay-lined hood or flue.
Standing at the threshold, the
interior space to the right would have been furnished for food preparation;
that to the left, for textile production. At the ‘back left’ young lambs may
have been kept beside a quiet area to the ‘back right’ reserved for sleeping. Wattle
partitioning may have separated different areas within the roundhouses. The
presence of slender split and mortised timbers may indicate simple items of
furniture.
The rectangular form of Structure 4 is unusual for the period but not unknown. The size and shape of this building results from it being secondary to the original pile-dwelling layout, squeezed between the existing roundhouses and palisade walkway.
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| The positioning of beads at the site seems to indicate that some would have formed composite necklaces of amber, glass, stone and jet. Photo: (c) Must Farm Website |
The buildings contained a similar
set of artefacts (pots, buckets, troughs, loom weights, spindle whorls,
bobbins, axes, gouges, sickles, querns, beads, seed caches etc.). A prime
example is the number and combination of axes, gouges, and sickles in the
metalwork collection with each structure equipped with a similar toolkit.
The resources utilized in the
construction of the site itself point to a substantial work force behind the
felling, moving and erection of timbers, particularly for the palisade. To
undertake work of this scale, the residents may have drawn on shared labour
from the wider community.
The framework of the roof was
comprised of mostly alder and ash poles used as radial rafters that bridged the
outer and inner rings of vertical posts. The roofing material comprised a
combination of turf, possible thatch, and clay.
The floor consisted of
lightweight wattle interwoven around radial floor joists made of slender alder
poles. It was supported underneath by a mass of alder poles, driven into the
riverbed at an angle and bowed over to form an arch. An intermediate ring of
short vertically driven ash and alder stakes provided additional support to the
floor.
In the middle of the settlement, there was a particularly well-preserved central walkway. This structure was over 5.9m long, made of a continuous, metre-wide, hazel hurdle panel, founded on small-diameter stakes, and supported by poles which were tied into the floors of the adjacent buildings.
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| Image showing palisade posts Photo: (c) Must Farm Website |
Wood and Woodworking
The wood used to construct the
Must Farm Settlement was sourced from a range of habitats and floated up or
down the river. Less buoyant green oak logs may have been rafted together with
ash and other more buoyant species to facilitate their movement.
The felling season for the trees
used was between September and March in a single winter. At the time of the
pile-dwelling’s construction and occupation, the main species were oak and
hazel, together with less evident ash, lime, beech, and elm. Ash wood was used
in large quantities and was readily available and accessible nearby.
Axe or adze was most commonly
used to fell or shape wood. There was no evidence of the use of saws. Gouges or
chisels were also occasionally employed in the building process. The jointing
technology used for the bulk of the structures was functional, consisting of
axe cut, with somewhat rough mortise holes. The level of skill displayed
suggests that the people involved were non-specialist woodworkers.
Most of the wood was used in an
unchanged form with the bark still intact. This included the piles of the main
structures and the palisade as well as the lighter sections such as roof
rafters and floor supports.
Fifteen two-piece wooden buckets,
made from hollowed-out alder logs with a separate base, are thought to have
been used to store or transport liquids such as water or milk. A collection of
bronze objects was found in one of these containers.
Other wooden artefacts involved in textile production include 40 wooden bobbins, 36 of which still had threads or fibres wrapped around them. Wooden hafts or handles belonging to several bronze tools and weapons were also recovered.
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| Late Bronze Age socketed axe complete with handle Photo: (c) Must Farm Website |
Nine axe hafts of ash, oak and
field maple were identified, three with the bronze socketed axe-heads still
attached. Nine spear shafts or fragments of shafts, mainly of ash, were also
found, two inserted in spear heads.
Perhaps, one of the more exciting
artefacts found at Must Farm was an almost complete cartwheel made of alder
planks together with fragments of a second, from Structure 3. An alder yoke
designed to harness a single animal was also found in this building.
Household Equipment
At Must Farm, culinary equipment (pots, querns, troughs, and buckets); tools (sickles, gouges, axes) and textile-related items (loom weights, spindle whorls, plant fibre bundles and sticks of yarn), were consistently situated on the eastern side of buildings.
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| Various pots during the pottery re-fitting exercise Photo: (c) Must Farm Website |
Four of the five main buildings
included a mix of jars, bowls, and cups, finewares and coarsewares, most of
which were grouped within the eastern side of each building which may have been
the ‘kitchen’ area.
Culinary tools include querns,
stirrers and scoops, and chopping/serving boards. Fragments were found from at
least six possible quernstones, three of which are traditional saddle querns.
Pottery is one of the most common
categories of find from the Late Bronze Age. Some 128 individual vessels were
identified, including at least 38 jars, 49 bowls and 12 cups. Most of the jars
were medium or large, with capacities in the region of 4–6 litres and 10–19 litres,
respectively.
The collection of at least 49
glass beads is unparalleled in a British context. All but one of these were
monochrome, probably originally blue, green or turquoise in colour. In
contrast, the bead necklaces were present in significant numbers only in the
two larger roundhouses (Structures 1 and 5) while dogs were present only in
Structure 5.
In Part 2, I shall look at food, wood
and woodworking, fabric production, wider connections, the comparison with
other settlements and abandonment.
For more information see:
“Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement: Vol. 1. Landscape,
architecture and occupation.” (2024). Edited by Mark Knight, Rachel Ballantyne,
Matthew Brudenell, Anwen Cooper, David Gibson & Iona Robinson Zeki
“Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement: Volume 2. Specialist
reports.” (2024). Edited by Rachel Ballantyne, A. Cooper, D. Gibson, Mark
Knight & I Robinson Zeki
Both volumes are freely accessible via the Must Farm website
https://www.mustfarm.com/bronze-age-settlement/
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