̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Division of Archaeology

Casting light on the dark ages: Anglo-Saxon fenland is re-imagined

amb206 — Fri, 21 Jul 2017 08:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��East Anglian fens with their flat expanses and wide skies, a tract of some of the UK’s richest farmland, are invariably described as bleak – or worse. Turn the clock back 1,000 years to a time when the silt and peat wetlands were largely undrained, and it’s easy to imagine a place that defied rather than welcomed human occupation.

Historians have long argued that during the ‘dark’ ages (the period between the withdrawal of Roman administration in around 400 AD and the Norman Conquest in 1066) most settlements in the region were deserted, and the fens became an anarchic, sparsely inhabited, watery wilderness.

A new interdisciplinary study of the region by a leading landscape archaeologist not only rewrites its early history across those six centuries but also, for the first time anywhere in Europe, offers a detailed view of the settlement and agricultural management of early medieval wetland landscapes.

Susan Oosthuizen’s ̽��ֱ��Anglo-Saxon Fenland (published last month by Windgather Press) is a prequel to the geographer Clifford Darby’s definitive study of the medieval fen, published in 1940. She draws on her interest in the relationship between early communities and their landscapes – in particular their management of herds of cattle across extensive areas of shared grazing.

Oosthuizen suggests that, rather than undergoing dramatic change after 400 AD, communities continued to live around the fen edge and on ‘islands’ of higher ground rising above the peat wetlands just as their ancestors had. Her evidence lies in the recent boost in archaeological discovery.

A five-fold increase in excavations since new planning guidance was issued in 1990, and the introduction of the Portable Antiquities Scheme in 1997 for recording finds by the public, have transformed the volume of archaeological material across Britain – including the windswept fens.

As a result the ‘dark ages’, as the period was often described, with its connotations of backwardness, is now more commonly called ‘early medieval’ which suggests less of a disjuncture between eras that appear instead to have unfolded seamlessly.

In ̽��ֱ��Anglo-Saxon Fenland, Oosthuizen argues that this new evidence shows there is little to support the idea that the fenland was anything but continuously occupied by settled, stable communities during the period 400 to 900 AD.

Who were ‘the Anglo-Saxons’ and what do we know about the fens between 400 and 900? In her prologue Oosthuizen addresses these key questions with admirable clarity. Her answers set the stage for an exploration of a fertile wetland exploited for millennia by local communities and threaded through by a network of rivers that allowed incomers from across the North Sea to penetrate as far as the English midlands.

Since the early 19th century, it has been assumed that during the 5th and 6th centuries indigenous British communities were removed altogether or reduced to servitude by incomers arriving from north-west Europe – the Anglo-Saxons – who lived in separate settlements.

There is now, however, a growing realisation among archaeologists that it is impossible to identify ‘Romano-British’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon’ communities on the basis of material culture, the things that people used every day. “Settlements, fields and artifacts can be distinguished by status,” argues Oosthuizen, “but not by the cultural background of the people to whom they belonged.”

She writes: “ ̽��ֱ��evidence from fenland shows that newcomers were assimilated into late British communities; there was no displacement of populations nor establishment of separate communities.” ̽��ֱ��distribution, for example, of Old English, vernacular Latin and (to a lesser extent) British Celtic place-names across southern England suggests that most early medieval people were bi- or even tri-lingual. Fenland was no different.

As Oosthuizen points out, being able to speak several languages confers obvious advantages, widening opportunities for all manner of transactions. It’s highly probable that the inhabitants of Walsoken and Chatteris, to name just two fenland villages, would have spoken both Old English and another language, switching from one to the other according to interlocutor and topic.

Basing her arguments on pollen analysis, archaeological evidence, the longevity over almost 1,500 years of rights of common pasture in the fen, and the etymology of place names, (and the absence of evidence to the contrary), Oosthuizen proposes that new arrivals were assimilated within the indigenous Romano-British communities, sharing livelihoods within the same landscape, their various languages and cultures mingling and merging.

̽��ֱ��Anglo-Saxon Fenland paints a portrait of communities whose agricultural economies were based on common rights in shared wetland resources that belonged to the whole of the small territories among which they were divided. Arrangements by which the landscape’s bounty was apportioned took account of the needs of both local communities and the land itself, breathing life into the adage that the old ways are often the best ways, based on the wisdom that comes with practical experience and knowledge passed down from one’s elders.

Dairy cattle, for example, were allowed first access to spring pasture; as providers of milk their needs for optimum nutrition were greatest. On the other hand, cattle were barred from land at times when their hooves would damage the soil structure vital to its long-term health.

Oosthuizen writes: “Timetabling [grazing by the dairy herd] was focused on sub-dividing the fens to allow for their rotation for different uses in different months, whose objectives were to maintain the quality of the grazing, to sustain the health of the herd, to ensure equitable exploitation among right holders, to maximise production, and to assure the long term sustainability of fen pastures.”

A similar checklist of priorities, Oosthuizen points out, underpins modern conservation advice on floodplain water meadows, which are best maintained on a regime that includes annual mowing, use of livestock from August to keep the grass short, maintenance of boundaries, clearing of watercourses, and control of invasive weeds.

There is abundant evidence - in place names, ditches and banks, land- and water-management practices, and (once they began) records of agreements based on centuries-old tried-and-tested farming methods - that people managed the landscape not just to meet their immediate needs but to assure the long-term sustainability of the wetland resources on which their livelihoods depended.

Detail of a late 16th century copy of an earlier map, possibly medieval in origin. It shows the area around Four Gotes in Tydd St Giles, near Wisbech. (Courtesy of Wisbech & Fenland Museum)

Fen dwellers made incremental adjustments to the ways in which they collectively exploited and safeguarded the fenland’s natural resources, adapting to water levels that slowly rose as a result of climate change.

In the undrained fen, water was both friend and foe. Serious flooding was a destructive force. Yet periodic (but relatively brief) seasonal inundation of pasture land produces grass not just for grazing but also to make the nutritious hay on which cattle thrived during the winters. Perhaps as early as 650, fen communities were already digging ditches to redirect excess water away from their pastures.

In 1618, the commoners at Cottenham described how the right amount of flooding, at the right time, could produce the white fodder which the cattle like best and that “those grounds that lie lowest, and are oftenest and longest overflown in the winter season are the most fertile grounds and yield the best yearly value”.

Detailed knowledge of the varying characteristics that depended on the degree of wetness in each part of the fenland enabled fen-dwellers to maximise its productivity through seasons wet and dry, and makes the most of opportunities for hunting, trapping and fishing - wildfowl and eels for the pot.

With ̽��ֱ��Anglo-Saxon Fenland Oosthuizen reveals a society whose origins could be found in prehistoric Britain, which had evolved through the four centuries of Roman administrations, and continued to develop thereafter. ̽��ֱ��rich and complex history of the fen region shows, she argues, a traditional social order evolving, adapting and innovating in response to changing times.

In piecing together evidence from a wide range of sources, she illuminates how early medieval communities interacted with each other, with newcomers, and – especially – how those relationships were intertwined with their management of the pastoral landscapes on which their livelihoods depended.

̽��ֱ��Anglo-Saxon Fenland by Susan Oosthuizen is published by Windgather Press.

What was life in the fens like in the period known as the dark ages? Archaeologist Susan Oosthuizen revisits the history of an iconic wetland in the light of fresh evidence and paints a compelling portrait of communities in tune with their changeable environment. In doing so, she makes an important contribution to a wider understanding of early medieval landscapes.

̽��ֱ��evidence from fenland shows that newcomers were assimilated into late British communities; there was no displacement of populations nor establishment of separate communities.

Susan Oosthuizen

Cattle grazing in the River Ouse water meadows south of Ely

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

First complete genome data extracted from ancient Egyptian mummies

sc604 — Tue, 30 May 2017 14:32:42 +0000

An international team of researchers have successfully recovered and analysed ancient DNA from Egyptian mummies dating from approximately 1400 BCE to 400 BCE, including the first genome-wide data from three individuals. ̽��ֱ��study found that modern Egyptians share more ancestry with sub-Saharan Africans than ancient Egyptians did, whereas ancient Egyptians were found to be most closely related to ancient people from the Middle East and Western Asia.

This study counters prior scepticism about the possibility of recovering reliable ancient DNA from Egyptian mummies. Despite the potential issues of degradation and contamination caused by climate and mummification methods, the authors were able to use high-throughput DNA sequencing and robust authentication methods to ensure the ancient origin and reliability of the data. ̽��ֱ��study, published in the journal Nature Communications, shows that Egyptian mummies can be a reliable source of ancient DNA, and can contribute to a more accurate and refined understanding of Egypt’s history.

Egypt is a promising location for the study of ancient populations. It has a rich and well-documented history, and its geographic location and many interactions with populations from surrounding areas, in Africa, Asia and Europe, make it a dynamic region. Recent advances in the study of ancient DNA present an opportunity to test existing understandings of Egyptian history using ancient genetic data.

However, genetic studies of ancient Egyptian mummies are rare due to methodological and contamination issues. Although some of the first extractions of ancient DNA were from mummified remains, scientists have raised doubts as to whether genetic data, especially the nuclear DNA which encodes for the majority of the genome, from mummies would be reliable, and whether it could be recovered at all.

“ ̽��ֱ��potential preservation of DNA has to be regarded with scepticism,” said Johannes Krause, Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and senior author of the study. “ ̽��ֱ��hot Egyptian climate, the high humidity levels in many tombs and some of the chemicals used in mummification techniques, contribute to DNA degradation and are thought to make the long-term survival of DNA in Egyptian mummies unlikely.”

For this study, the team, led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Tübingen and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, and including researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, looked at genetic differentiation and population continuity over a 1,300 year timespan, and compared these results to modern populations.

̽��ֱ��team sampled 151 mummified individuals from the archaeological site of Abusir el-Meleq, along the Nile River in Middle Egypt, from two anthropological collections hosted and curated at the ̽��ֱ�� of Tübingen and the Felix von Luschan Skull Collection at the Museum of Prehistory of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Stiftung Preussicher Kulturbesitz.

In total, the authors recovered partial genomes from 90 individuals, and genome-wide datasets from three individuals. They were able to use the data gathered to test previous hypotheses drawn from archaeological and historical data, and from studies of modern DNA.

“In particular, we were interested in looking at changes and continuities in the genetic makeup of the ancient inhabitants of Abusir el-Meleq,” said Alexander Peltzer, one of the lead authors of the study from the ̽��ֱ�� of Tübingen.

̽��ֱ��team wanted to determine if the investigated ancient populations were affected at the genetic level by foreign conquest and domination during the time period under study, and compared these populations to modern Egyptian comparative populations.

“There is literary and archaeological evidence for foreign influence at the site, including the presence of individuals with Greek and Latin names and the use of foreign material culture,” said co-author W. Paul van Pelt from Cambridge’s Division of Archaeology. “However, neither of these provides direct evidence for the presence of foreigners or of individuals with a migration background, because many markers of Greek and Roman identity became ‘status symbols’ and were adopted by natives and foreigners alike. ̽��ֱ��combined use of artefacts, textual evidence and ancient DNA data allows a more holistic study of past identities and cultural exchange or ‘entanglement’.”

̽��ֱ��study found that the inhabitants of Absur el-Meleq were most closely related to ancient populations in the Levant, and were also closely related to Neolithic populations from the Anatolian Peninsula and Europe. “ ̽��ֱ��genetics of the Abusir el-Meleq community did not undergo any major shifts during the 1,300 year timespan we studied, suggesting that the population remained genetically relatively unaffected by foreign conquest and rule,” said Wolfgang Haak, group leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, and a co-author of the paper.

̽��ֱ��data shows that modern Egyptians share approximately 8% more ancestry on the nuclear level with sub-Saharan African populations than the inhabitants of Abusir el-Meleq, suggesting that an increase in sub-Saharan African gene flow into Egypt occurred within the last 2,000 years. Possible causal factors may have been improved mobility down the Nile River, increased long-distance trade between sub-Saharan Africa and Egypt, and the trans-Saharan slave trade that began approximately 1,300 years ago.

Reference:
Verena J. Schuenemann et al. ‘Ancient Egyptian mummy genomes suggest an increase of Sub-Saharan African ancestry in post-Roman periods.’ Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15694

Adapted from a press release from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Study finds that ancient Egyptians were most closely related to ancient populations from the Middle East and Western Asia.

̽��ֱ��combined use of artefacts, textual evidence and ancient DNA data allows a more holistic study of past identities and cultural exchange.

W. Paul van Pelt

Will Scullin

Usermontu Mummy

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution

Revealed: face of ‘ordinary poor’ man from medieval Cambridge

fpjl2 — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 16:23:59 +0000

̽��ֱ��audience of an event at this year’s Cambridge Science Festival found themselves face-to-face with a fellow Cambridge resident – one who had spent the last 700 years buried beneath the venue in which they sat.

̽��ֱ��13th-century man, called Context 958 by researchers, was among some 400 burials for which complete skeletal remains were uncovered when one of the largest medieval hospital graveyards in Britain was discovered underneath the Old Divinity School of St John’s College, and excavated between 2010 and 2012.

̽��ֱ��bodies, which mostly date from a period spanning the 13th to 15th centuries, are burials from the Hospital of St John the Evangelist which stood opposite the graveyard until 1511, and from which the College takes its name. ̽��ֱ��hospital was an Augustinian charitable establishment in Cambridge dedicated to providing care to members of the public.

“Context 958 was probably an inmate of the Hospital of St John, a charitable institution which provided food and a place to live for a dozen or so indigent townspeople – some of whom were probably ill, some of whom were aged or poor and couldn't live alone,” said Professor John Robb, from the ̽��ֱ��’s Division of Archaeology.

In collaboration with Dr Chris Rynn from the ̽��ֱ�� of Dundee’s Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, Robb and Cambridge colleagues have reconstructed the man’s face and pieced together the rudiments of his life story by analysing his bones and teeth.

̽��ֱ��work is one of the first outputs from the Wellcome Trust-funded project ‘After the plague: health and history in medieval Cambridge’ for which Robb is principal investigator. ̽��ֱ��project is analysing the St John's burials not just statistically, but also biographically.

“Context 958 was over 40 when he died, and had quite a robust skeleton with a lot of wear and tear from a hard working life. We can't say what job specifically he did, but he was a working class person, perhaps with a specialised trade of some kind,” said Robb.

“One interesting feature is that he had a diet relatively rich in meat or fish, which may suggest that he was in a trade or job which gave him more access to these foods than a poor person might have normally had. He had fallen on hard times, perhaps through illness, limiting his ability to continue working or through not having a family network to take care of him in his poverty.”

There are hints beyond his interment in the hospital’s graveyard that Context 958’s life was one of adversity. His tooth enamel had stopped growing on two occasions during his youth, suggesting he had suffered bouts of sickness or famine early on. Archaeologists also found evidence of a blunt-force trauma on the back of his skull that had healed over prior to his death.

Click on images below to enlarge:

“He has a few unusual features, notably being buried face down which is a small irregularity for medieval burial. But, we are interested in him and in people like him more for ways in which they are not unusual, as they represent a sector of the medieval population which is quite hard to learn about: ordinary poor people,” said Robb.

“Most historical records are about well-off people and especially their financial and legal transactions – the less money and property you had, the less likely anybody was to ever write down anything about you. So skeletons like this are really our chance to learn about how the ordinary poor lived.”

̽��ֱ��focal point of the ‘After the Plague’ project will be the large sample of urban poor people from the graveyard of the Hospital of St John, which researchers will compare with other medieval collections to build up a picture of the lives, health and day-to-day activities of people living in Cambridge, and urban England as a whole, at this time.

“ ̽��ֱ��After the Plague project is also about humanising people in the past, getting beyond the scientific facts to see them as individuals with life stories and experiences,” said Robb.

“This helps us communicate our work to the public, but it also helps us imagine them ourselves as leading complex lives like we do today. That's why putting all the data together into biographies and giving them faces is so important.”

̽��ֱ��Old Divinity School of St John’s College was built in 1877-1879 and was recently refurbished, now housing a 180-seat lecture theatre used for College activities and public events, including last week’s Science Festival lecture given by Robb on the life of Context 958 and the research project.

̽��ֱ��School was formerly the burial ground of the Hospital, instituted around 1195 by the townspeople of Cambridge to care for the poor and sick in the community. Originally a small building on a patch of waste ground, the Hospital grew with Church support to be a noted place of hospitality and care for both ̽��ֱ�� scholars and local people.

New facial reconstruction of a man buried in a medieval hospital graveyard discovered underneath a Cambridge college sheds light on how ordinary poor people lived in 13th century England.

Skeletons like this are really our chance to learn about how the ordinary poor lived

John Robb

Chris Rynn, ̽��ֱ�� of Dundee

̽��ֱ��facial reconstruction of Context 958

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Graduate, get a job … make a difference #5

ta385 — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 09:00:00 +0000

Nina O’Hare (Newnham College) Archaeology & Anthropology (2015)

I’m a field archaeologist with Worcestershire County Council, which means that I spend most days outside working as part of a small team to conduct pre-development archaeological surveys. Our projects can range from several small trenches in a car park, looking for medieval urban occupation, to a multi-hectare excavation exploring changing landscape use from the prehistoric to present day.

I have wanted to be an archaeologist for a long time, but it was only through the outreach work I was involved in at Cambridge that I realised community archaeology is the area I most want to work in. Just after graduating, I was lucky enough to gain an archaeological outreach internship connected to the Archaeology department. This took me to Dunwich in Suffolk, where we worked with a wide range of volunteers to excavate the last remaining part of a once prosperous medieval trading port, which is now almost entirely lost to the sea. Working alongside volunteers and engaging with the community at Dunwich and elsewhere helped confirm that this is the career path I want to pursue.

What Cambridge did for me

As you would expect, my degree gave me a solid foundation in archaeological knowledge, thought and theory. But the research, time management and writing skill sets I gained along the way are in some ways more valuable in post-graduation life, and have already helped me in producing several commercial archaeological reports as part of my current job.

I’m still inspired by the academics and time I had at Cambridge to really explore and investigate a topic - Neolithic archaeology, from the enigmatic time when farming began, is a fascinating challenge to try and untangle.

̽��ֱ��teaching system at Cambridge is based on individual or small group supervisions, in which you discuss a particular topic and your work with an academic. Gaining confidence at explaining, summarising and discussing ideas through supervisions has been extremely valuable to me during job interviews.

Alongside my degree, I also gained a lot of organisation skills and experience through running a large society event and setting up an online access project that is aimed at helping prospective Cambridge applicants. Being involved in college and university-level access work has helped me work towards being involved in outreach and community work and started to equip me with the skill set to do so.

My Motivation

Working with and teaching members of the public about archaeology is really inspiring – it’s a great privilege to be able to share knowledge about, and that physical connection to, our past. In the future, I hope to work within community archaeology and would like one day to be able to combine research into Neolithic Britain with community and university outreach work.

Applying to Cambridge

In exploring different university courses, I discovered that Cambridge's Division of Archaeology runs an undergraduate open day each spring, which I attended. Being a subject-specific open day, I gained a good overview of what the course was like, what module options there were and how it was taught, which helped me to decide that Cambridge was the best place for me to study archaeology.

I found a lot of myth-busting and useful information on the ̽��ֱ�� website and the CUSU Alternative Prospectus (Apply to Cambridge) website – this helped me through Cambridge's unique and early application process.

̽��ֱ��two admissions interviews I had turned out to be a lot less scary than anticipated, as they were more of an academic discussion than a formal interview.

Starting at Cambridge was a less daunting prospect due to the friendly college system, as instead of being 1 of Cambridge's 3000 new undergraduates, I was 1 of just 110 newcomers starting at Newnham College.

Cambridge graduates enter a wide range of careers but making a difference tops their career wish lists. In this series, inspiring graduates from the last three years describe Cambridge, their current work and their determination to give back.

Working with and teaching members of the public about archaeology is really inspiring

Nina O'Hare (Alumna)

Studying archaeology at Cambridge

Undergraduate archaeology is now taught in a free-standing Archaeology course.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Rice farming in India much older than thought, used as 'summer crop' by Indus civilisation

fpjl2 — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 10:28:45 +0000

Latest research on archaeological sites of the ancient Indus Civilisation, which stretched across what is now Pakistan and northwest India during the Bronze Age, has revealed that domesticated rice farming in South Asia began far earlier than previously believed, and may have developed in tandem with - rather than as a result of - rice domestication in China.

̽��ֱ��research also confirms that Indus populations were the earliest people to use complex multi-cropping strategies across both seasons, growing foods during summer (rice, millets and beans) and winter (wheat, barley and pulses), which required different watering regimes. ̽��ֱ��findings suggest a network of regional farmers supplied assorted produce to the markets of the civilisation's ancient cities.

Evidence for very early rice use has been known from the site of Lahuradewa in the central Ganges basin, but it has long been thought that domesticated rice agriculture didn't reach South Asia until towards the end of the Indus era, when the wetland rice arrived from China around 2000 BC. Researchers found evidence of domesticated rice in South Asia as much as 430 years earlier.

̽��ֱ��new research is published today in the journals Antiquity and Journal of Archaeological Science by researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge's Division of Archaeology, in collaboration with colleagues at Banaras Hindu ̽��ֱ�� and the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford.

"We found evidence for an entirely separate domestication process in ancient South Asia, likely based around the wild species Oryza nivara. This led to the local development of a mix of 'wetland' and 'dryland' agriculture of local Oryza sativa indica rice agriculture before the truly 'wetland' Chinese rice, Oryza sativa japonica, arrived around 2000 BC," says study co-author Dr Jennifer Bates

"While wetland rice is more productive, and took over to a large extent when introduced from China, our findings appear to show there was already a long-held and sustainable culture of rice production in India as a widespread summer addition to the winter cropping during the Indus civilisation."

Co-author Dr Cameron Petrie says that the location of the Indus in a part of the world that received both summer and winter rains may have encouraged the development of seasonal crop rotation before other major civilisations of the time, such as Ancient Egypt and China's Shang Dynasty.

"Most contemporary civilisations initially utilised either winter crops, such as the Mesopotamian reliance on wheat and barley, or the summer crops of rice and millet in China - producing surplus with the aim of stockpiling," says Petrie.

"However, the area inhabited by the Indus is at a meteorological crossroads, and we found evidence of year-long farming that predates its appearance in the other ancient river valley civilisations."

̽��ֱ��archaeologists sifted for traces of ancient grains in the remains of several Indus villages within a few kilometers of the site called Rakhigari: the most recently excavated of the Indus cities that may have maintained a population of some 40,000.

As well as the winter staples of wheat and barley and winter pulses like peas and vetches, they found evidence of summer crops: including domesticated rice, but also millet and the tropical beans urad and horsegram, and used radiocarbon dating to provide the first absolute dates for Indus multi-cropping: 2890-2630 BC for millets and winter pulses, 2580-2460 BC for horsegram, and 2430-2140 BC for rice.

Millets are a group of small grain, now most commonly used in birdseed, which Petrie describes as "often being used as something to eat when there isn't much else". Urad beans, however, are a relative of the mung bean, often used in popular types of Indian dhal today.

In contrast with evidence from elsewhere in the region, the village sites around Rakhigari reveal that summer crops appear to have been much more popular than the wheats of winter.

̽��ֱ��researchers say this may have been down to the environmental variation in this part of the former civilisation: on the seasonally flooded Ghaggar-Hakra plains where different rainfall patterns and vegetation would have lent themselves to crop diversification - potentially creating local food cultures within individual areas.

This variety of crops may have been transported to the cities. Urban hubs may have served as melting pots for produce from regional growers, as well as meats and spices, and evidence for spices have been found elsewhere in the region.

While they don't yet know what crops were being consumed at Rakhigarhi, Jennifer Bates points out that: "It is certainly possible that a sustainable food economy across the Indus zone was achieved through growing a diverse range of crops, with choice being influenced by local conditions.

"It is also possible that there was trade and exchange in staple crops between populations living in different regions, though this is an idea that remains to be tested."

"Such a diverse system was probably well suited to mitigating risk from shifts in climate," adds Cameron Petrie. "It may be that some of today's farming monocultures could learn from the local crop diversity of the Indus people 4,000 years ago."

̽��ֱ��findings are the latest from the Land, Water and Settlement Project, which has been conducting research on the ancient Indus Civilisation in northwest India since 2008.

Thought to have arrived from China in 2000 BC, latest research shows domesticated rice agriculture in India and Pakistan existed centuries earlier, and suggests systems of seasonal crop variation that would have provided a rich and diverse diet for the Bronze Age residents of the Indus valley.

Our findings appear to show there was already a long-held and sustainable culture of rice production in India as a widespread summer addition to the winter cropping during the Indus civilisation

Jennifer Bates

Cameron Petrie

Zebu cattle pulling a wagon beside a pond at the Indus Civilisation site of Rakhigarhi in northwest India

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Latest archaeological finds at Must Farm provide a vivid picture of everyday life in the Bronze Age

amb206 — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 09:10:34 +0000

Archaeologists have made remarkable discoveries about everyday life in the Bronze Age during their ten-month excavation of 3,000-year-old circular wooden houses at Must Farm in Cambridgeshire, a site that has been described as the 'Pompeii of the fens'.

Believed to be the best-preserved Bronze Age dwellings ever found in Britain, the houses were destroyed by a fire that caused the settlement, which was built on stilts, to collapse into the shallow river beneath. ̽��ֱ��soft river silt encapsulated the remains of the charred dwellings and their contents, which survive in extraordinary detail.

̽��ֱ��range and quality of the many finds have astonished members of Cambridge Archaeological Unit and colleagues at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Division of Archaeology. ̽��ֱ��fire is thought to have happened soon after the construction of the roundhouses.

“ ̽��ֱ��excellent preservation of the site is due to deposition in a water-logged environment, the exclusion of air and the lack of disturbance to the site. ̽��ֱ��timber and artefacts fell into a partly infilled river channel where they were later buried by more than two metres of peat and silt,” said Professor Charles French from the Division of Archaeology. “Surface charring of the wood and other materials also helped to preserve them.”

Now the excavation is coming to an end, archaeologists are able to build a near complete picture of domestic life in a Bronze Age house: where activities happened, what the roof was made of, what people were wearing, and how their clothes were produced. ̽��ֱ��materials found provide evidence of farming, crafts and building technologies.

̽��ֱ��site has revealed the largest collections in Britain of Bronze Age textiles, beads, domestic wooden artefacts (including buckets, platters, troughs, shafts and handles) and domestic metalwork (axes, sickles, hammers, spears, gouges, razors, knives and awls). It has also yielded a wide range of household items; among them are several complete ‘sets’ of storage jars, cups and bowls, some with grain and food residues still inside. Most of the pots are unbroken and are made in the same style; this too is unprecedented.

“Perhaps uniquely, we are seeing the whole repertoire of living at Must Farm – from food procurement to cooking, eating and waste and the construction and shaping of building materials,” said Professor French. “We see the full tool and weapons kits – not just items that had been lost, thrown away or deposited in an act of veneration – all in one place.”

Finds of textiles and fibres illuminate the stages of textile production, and include hanks of prepared fibre, thread wound on wooden sticks or into balls, and finished fabrics of various qualities. “ ̽��ֱ��outstanding level of preservation means that we can use methods, such as scanning electron microscopy which magnifies more than 10,000 times, to look in detail at the fibre content and structure,” said Dr Margarita Gleba, an archaeologist specialising in textiles.

“All the textiles appear to have been made from plant fibres. ̽��ֱ��people at Must Farm used cultivated species, such as flax, as well as wild plants, such as nettle and perhaps trees, to obtain raw materials. Flax provided the finest fibres and was used to weave fine linen fabrics on a loom. ̽��ֱ��linen textiles found at Must Farm are among the finest from Bronze Age Europe. Wild fibres appear to have been used for coarser fabrics made in a different technique, known as twining.”

Two rare well-preserved Bronze Age tripartite wheels have been found on site. These attest to a world beyond the river and to the ongoing relationship between the wetland settlement and the adjacent managed and cultivated dry land. Despite the site’s situation in a wetland, the majority of the surviving material speaks of an economy based on dry land.

Several undergraduates on Cambridge’s archaeology course have had the chance to assist with the dig, working alongside Cambridge Archaeological Unit to gain first-hand experience of a water-logged site. Professor French said: “Four of our students were able to experience the challenge of digging organic remains in a matrix of organic silt – and dealing with the three-dimensional structures of the collapsed dwellings which require a particular way of thinking.”

Visits to the site by more than 2,000 members of the public have been led by Selina Davenport of Cambridge Archaeological Unit. “One of the things that people find most fascinating is the way in which the site questions the long-held view about life in the fens during the Bronze Age that communities used the resources of the watery environment but lived on dry land,” she said.

“ ̽��ֱ��finds at Must Farm reveal that some communities were living right in the heart of the fen – and that these people were connected to others by an active thoroughfare which linked them to the rest of Britain and to the North Sea.”

̽��ֱ��excavation is funded by Historic England and building products supplier Forterra. ̽��ֱ��work on the site has been carried out by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit. Further work on the finds is taking place at the McDonald Institute, Division of Archaeology, and other centres.

More images (courtesy of Historic England) of some of the finds.

Excavation of a site in the Cambridgeshire fens reveals a Bronze Age settlement with connections far beyond its watery location. Over the past ten months, Must Farm has yielded Britain’s largest collections of Bronze Age textiles, beads and domestic artefacts. Together with timbers of several roundhouses, the finds provide a stunning snapshot of a community thriving 3,000 years ago.

Perhaps uniquely, we are seeing the whole repertoire of living at Must Farm – from food procurement to cooking, eating and waste and the construction and shaping of building materials.

Charles French

Must Farm

Stuffocation in the Bronze Age

David Gibson, Archaeological Manager at the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, Division of Archaeology, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said that the exceptional site of Must Farm gives a picture, in exquisite detail, of everyday life in the Bronze Age.

He said: "Domestic activity within structures is demonstrated from clothing to household objects, to furniture and diet. These dwellings have it all, the complete set, it’s a 'full house'. 'Stuffocation', very much in vogue in today’s 21st century, may, given the sheer quantity of finds from the houses at Must Farm, have been a much earlier problem then we’d ever imagined.”

What did people wear 3,000 years ago?

̽��ֱ��community living in these roundhouses were making their own high quality textiles, like linen. Some of the woven linen fabrics are made with threads as thin as the diameter of a course human hair and are among the finest Bronze Age examples found in Europe.

Other fabrics and fibres found include balls of thread, twining, bundles of plant fibres and loom weights which were used to weave threads together. Textiles were common in the Bronze Age but it is very rare for them to survive today.

What did they eat?

Wild animal remains found in rubbish dumps outside the houses, show they were eating wild boar, red deer and freshwater fish such as pike. Inside the houses, the remains of young lambs and calves have been found, revealing a mixed diet. While it is common for Late Bronze Age settlements to include farm domestic animals, it is rare to find wild animals being an equally important part of their diet. Plants and cereals were also an important part of the Bronze Age diet and the charred remains of porridge type foods, emmer wheat and barley grains have been found preserved in amazing detail, sometimes still inside the bowls they were served in.

What household goods did they have?

Each of the houses was fully equipped with pots of different sizes, wooden buckets and platters, metal tools, saddle querns (stone tools for grinding grains), weapons, textiles, loom weights and glass beads. These finds suggest a materialism and sophistication never before seen in a British Bronze Age settlement. Even 3,000 years ago people seemed to have a lot of stuff.

Many of these objects are relatively pristine suggesting that they had only been used for a very short time before the settlement was engulfed by fire.

What did Bronze Age houses look like?

At least five houses have been found at the Must Farm settlement, each one built very closely together for a small community of people. Every house seems to have been planned in the same way, with an area for storing meat and another area for cooking or preparing food.

̽��ֱ��roundhouses were built on stilts above a small river. ̽��ֱ��conical roofs were built of long wooden rafters covered in turf, clay and thatch. ̽��ֱ��floors and walls were made of wickerwork, held firmly in place by the wooden frame.

What were they trading in?

Some 18 pale green and turquoise glass beads have been found which analysis has shown were probably made in the Mediterranean basin or the Middle East.

̽��ֱ��Q&A above is taken from a Historic England press release.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Sixth formers see the future in ancient Egypt & Mesopotamia

ta385 — Fri, 27 May 2016 08:00:00 +0000

Fifty students from 24 schools from across the UK attended the inaugural, all-day conference at ̽��ֱ��British Museum in London.

̽��ֱ��students heard experts from the Museum as well as the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Liverpool, Cardiff, Swansea, UCL, Durham and SOAS. Participants also joined special tours of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian sections of ̽��ֱ��British Museum, led by specialists from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Egypt and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, ancient Sumer, Assyria and Babylon) have produced some of the most fascinating discoveries about the ancient world. Today it is possible to learn the languages, study the artefacts, and reconstruct the most varied aspects of these ancient civilisations in astonishing detail.

Recent events, notably the desecration of monuments in the ancient city of Palmyra, in modern-day Syria, have underlined the relevance and fragility of this cultural heritage in the 21st century.

Martin Worthington, Lecturer in Assyriology at Cambridge, said: “These subjects are not offered at A-Level and few sixth formers are aware that they even exist as university subjects. We wanted to show them what makes studying Egypt and Mesopotamia so intellectually and culturally exciting, highlight the various degree courses which are available to them, and explain what admissions tutors are looking for.”

̽��ֱ��programme included talks about careers, information on admissions, and the opportunity to meet current students and academic staff from many of the institutions in the UK that teach these subjects.

Highlights of the day included Kate Spence, Senior Lecturer in Egyptian Archaeology at Cambridge, talking about ‘Egypt in Nubia: cultures in collision’; Richard Parkinson, Professor of Egyptology at Oxford, sharing his passion for reading ancient Egyptian texts; and Paul Nicholson, Professor in Archaeology at Cardiff exploring ‘ ̽��ֱ��Catacombs of Anubis at North Saqqara’.

Adam Agowun, 17, a student at Parmiter’s School in Hertfordshire said: "I loved seeing everything and hearing the various talks. It has reaffirmed everything that I've hoped for. I am going to study Egyptology."

Cambridge, which organised the event, is one of the few universities in the country to teach Egyptology and Assyriology. From October 2017, these subjects will be included in the ̽��ֱ��’s new Single Honours degree in Archaeology. Professor Cyprian Broodbank, Head of Cambridge’s Division of Archaeology, said “ ̽��ֱ��subject embraces a wide range of approaches spanning the sciences and humanities and it’s a superb medium for training the flexible, innovative minds that our society needs.”

After the event, 93 per cent of respondents said the day had made them more likely to study Egypt and Mesopotamia at university.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ��’s archaeologists recently teamed up with ̽��ֱ��British Museum to inspire sixth formers to consider studying Egyptology and Assyriology, subjects which very few have the opportunity to study at school.

We wanted to show what makes studying Egypt and Mesopotamia so intellectually and culturally exciting

Martin Worthington, Lecturer in Assyriology

Dr Martin Worthington reads a Neo-Assyrian royal inscription in the British Museum

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Bronze Age stilt houses unearthed in East Anglian Fens

fpjl2 — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 10:04:05 +0000

Archaeologists have revealed exceptionally well-preserved Bronze Age dwellings during an excavation at Must Farm quarry in the East Anglian fens that is providing an extraordinary insight into domestic life 3,000 years ago. ̽��ֱ��settlement, dating to the end of the Bronze Age (1200-800 BC), would have been home to several families who lived in a number of wooden houses on stilts above water.

̽��ֱ��settlement was destroyed by fire that caused the dwellings to collapse into the river, preserving the contents in situ. ̽��ֱ��result is an extraordinary time capsule containing exceptional textiles made from plant fibres such as lime tree bark, rare small cups, bowls and jars complete with past meals still inside. Also found are exotic glass beads forming part of an elaborate necklace, hinting at a sophistication not usually associated with the British Bronze Age.

̽��ֱ��exposed structures are believed to be the best-preserved Bronze Age dwellings ever found in Britain and the finds, taken together, provide a fuller picture of prehistoric life than we have ever had before.

̽��ֱ��major excavation is happening because of concern about the long-term preservation of this unique Bronze Age site with its extraordinary remains. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) is carrying out the excavation of 1,100 square metres of the Must Farm site in Cambridgeshire, and is now half way through the project.

̽��ֱ��excavation site is two metres below the modern ground surface, as levels have risen over thousands of years and archaeologists have now reached the river bed as it was in 1000-800BC. Clearly visible are the well-preserved charred roof timbers of one of the roundhouses, timbers with tool marks and a perimeter of wooden posts known as a palisade which once enclosed the site.

It is possible that those living in the settlement were forced to leave everything behind when it caught on fire. Such is the level of preservation due to the deep waterlogged sediments of the Fens, the footprints of those who once lived there were also found. ̽��ֱ��finds suggest there is much more to be discovered in the rest of the settlement as the excavation continues over the coming months.

CAU’s Mark Knight, Site Director of the excavation, said: “Must Farm is the first large-scale investigation of the deeply buried sediments of the fens and we uncover the perfectly preserved remains of prehistoric settlement. Everything suggests the site is not a one-off but in fact presents a template of an undiscovered community that thrived 3,000 years ago ‘beneath’ Britain’s largest wetland.”

̽��ֱ��£1.1 million four-year project has been funded by heritage organisation Historic England and the building firm Forterra. Duncan Wilson, Chief Executive of Historic England, said: “A dramatic fire 3,000 years ago combined with subsequent waterlogged preservation has left to us a frozen moment in time, which gives us a graphic picture of life in the Bronze Age.”

After the excavation is complete, the team will take all the finds for further analysis and conservation. Eventually they will be displayed at Peterborough Museum and at other local venues. ̽��ֱ��end of the four year project will see a major publication about Must Farm and an online resource detailing the finds.

̽��ֱ��site, now a clay quarry owned by Forterra, is close to Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire and sits astride a prehistoric watercourse inside the Flag Fen basin. ̽��ֱ��site has produced large quantities of Bronze Age metalwork, including a rapier and sword in 1969, and more recently the discovery of nine pristinely preserved log boats in 2011.

Archaeologists say these discoveries place Must Farm alongside similar European Prehistoric Wetland sites; the ancient loch-side dwellings known as crannogs in Scotland and Ireland; stilt houses, also known as pile dwellings, around the Alpine Lakes; and the terps of Friesland, manmade hill dwellings in the Netherlands.

David Gibson, Archaeological Manager at CAU, added: “Usually at a Later Bronze Age period site you get pits, post-holes and maybe one or two really exciting metal finds. Convincing people that such places were once thriving settlements takes some imagination.

“But this time so much more has been preserved – we can actually see everyday life during the Bronze Age in the round. It’s prehistoric archaeology in 3D with an unsurpassed finds assemblage both in terms of range and quantity,” he said.

For a more detailed summary of the Must Farm discoveries, visit the project archive here: http://www.mustfarm.com/bronze-age-timber-platform/progress/archive/

Large circular wooden houses built on stilts collapsed in a dramatic fire 3,000 years ago and plunged into a river, preserving their contents in astonishing detail. Archaeologists say the excavations have revealed the best-preserved Bronze Age dwellings ever found in Britain.

It’s prehistoric archaeology in 3D with an unsurpassed finds assemblage both in terms of range and quantity

David Gibson

Cambridge Archaeological Unit

Archaeologists at Must Farm have uncovered the charred wooden roof structure of a 3,000 year old round house.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes