Archaeologists found food from between 1000-800 BC in a set of pots, textiles and other material at a Cambridgeshire settlement destroyed by fire during the Bronze Age © Cambridge Archaeological Unit
Posted on 06/28/2015 11:17:16 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
An "extraordinary testimony" to the lives of prosperous people in Bronze Age Britain could lie under the soil of a 1,100-square metre site destroyed in a fire 3,000 years ago, say archaeologists who are about to start digging within a brick pit near Peterborough.
Must Farm -- part of the Flag Fen Basin, and the site where nine pristine log boats were famously unearthed in 2011 -- was protected by a ring of wooden posts before a dramatic fire at the end of the Bronze Age caused the dwelling to collapse into the river.
Its submergence preserved its contents, creating what experts are describing as a "time capsule" of "exceptional" decorated tiles made from lime tree bark.
Rare small pots, jars complete with 1,200-year-old meals and "sophisticated" exotic glass beads are expected to provide a complete picture of prehistoric life during the nine-month excavation, which is part of a four-year, £1.1 million project at the site.
"We think those living in the settlement were forced to leave everything behind when it caught on fire," says Kasia Gdaniec, Cambridgeshire County Council's Senior Archaeologist.
"An extraordinarily rich range of goods and objects are present in the river deposits, some of which were found during an evaluation in 2006.
"Among the items was a charred pot with vitrified food inside it and a partially charred spoon, suggesting that the site had been abandoned quickly.
"We anticipate that more of the timber structure, a range of organic remains and fishing equipment and the whole gamut of personal, work and settlement paraphernalia will be found.
"But we are hoping not to find remains of people that may have suffered the impact of the fire, though this possibility cannot be ruled out.
(Excerpt) Read more at culture24.org.uk ...
Archaeologists found food from between 1000-800 BC in a set of pots, textiles and other material at a Cambridgeshire settlement destroyed by fire during the Bronze Age © Cambridge Archaeological Unit
Then silence for a lingering century, though usually more, with necessity stimulating one of the most inventive periods in human history.
Does anyone speculate on the timing, how it might coordinate with the spread of the Sea People (that model of diversity unequaled until the prison and punk street gang anti-culture of our day)?
Most experts, if I remember correctly, trace their origins to the western Mediterranean, so this depredation might place a whole new spin on the beginning of that ancient dark age.
Still fresh.
Add me? :)
Hey, the expiration date on those is irrelevant. ;’)
“Bronze Age Britain”-
“We think those living in the settlement were forced to leave everything behind when it caught on fire,”
This is what happens when an electrician uses bronze wires.
Did they find Twinkies or a Whopper there?
Great minds think alike...
This appears to have been a village built on piers over a swampy or riverine area, like Lake-town in "The Hobbit", but consistent with a longstanding practice common in prehistoric Europe. The Sea People were mentioned a couple of times in Egyptian records of the New Kingdom; they didn't have the grandiose existence posited for them by alleged scholars. They are a curious group -- they had no homeland, left no settlements, left no characteristic burials, weapons, language, DNA -- and yet they are used as a kludge to account for a dark age that never happened.
“Did they find Twinkies or a Whopper there?”
No, but they did find Spam.
the legend of the lake dwellers (zürich, switzerland)
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/rediscovering-the-legend-of-the-lake-dwellers/1288560
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