Friday, May 31, 2024

Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement - Part 1

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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/