̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Bronze Age

Research reveals ‘cosy domesticity’ of prehistoric stilt-house dwellers in England’s ancient marshland

fpjl2 — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 08:57:27 +0000

Detailed reports on thousands of artefacts pulled from “Britain’s Pompeii” reveals the surprisingly sophisticated domestic lives of Bronze Age Fen folk, from home interiors to recipes, clothing, kitchenware and pets.

Ancient faeces reveal how ‘marsh diet’ left Bronze Age Fen folk infected with parasites

fpjl2 — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 23:53:31 +0000

New research published today in the journal Parasitology shows how the prehistoric inhabitants of a settlement in the freshwater marshes of eastern England were infected by intestinal worms caught from foraging for food in the lakes and waterways around their homes.

̽��ֱ��Bronze Age settlement at Must Farm, located near what is now the fenland city of Peterborough, consisted of wooden houses built on stilts above the water. Wooden causeways connected islands in the marsh, and dugout canoes were used to travel along water channels.

̽��ֱ��village burnt down in a catastrophic fire around 3,000 years ago, with artefacts from the houses preserved in mud below the waterline, including food, cloth, and jewellery. ̽��ֱ��site has been called “Britain’s Pompeii”.

Also preserved in the surrounding mud were waterlogged coprolites – pieces of human and animal faeces – that have now been collected and analysed by archaeologists at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. They used microscopy techniques to detect ancient parasite eggs within the faeces and surrounding sediment.

Very little is known about the intestinal diseases of Bronze Age Britain. ̽��ֱ��one previous study, of a farming village in Somerset, found evidence of roundworm and whipworm: parasites spread through contamination of food by human faeces.

̽��ֱ��ancient excrement of the Anglian marshes tells a different story. “We have found the earliest evidence for fish tapeworm, Echinostoma worm, and giant kidney worm in Britain,” said study lead author Dr Piers Mitchell of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology.

“These parasites are spread by eating raw aquatic animals such as fish, amphibians and molluscs. Living over slow-moving water may have protected the inhabitants from some parasites, but put them at risk of others if they ate fish or frogs.”

Disposal of human and animal waste into the water around the settlement likely prevented direct faecal pollution of the fenlanders’ food, and so prevented infection from roundworm – the eggs of which have been found at Bronze Age sites across Europe.

However, water in the fens would have been quite stagnant, due in part to thick reed beds, leaving waste accumulating in the surrounding channels. Researchers say this likely provided fertile ground for other parasites to infect local wildlife, which – if eaten raw or poorly cooked – then spread to village residents.

“ ̽��ֱ��dumping of excrement into the freshwater channel in which the settlement was built, and consumption of aquatic organisms from the surrounding area, created an ideal nexus for infection with various species of intestinal parasite,” said study first author Marissa Ledger, also from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology.

Fish tapeworms can reach 10m in length, and live coiled up in the intestines. Heavy infection can lead to anaemia. Giant kidney worms can reach up to a metre in length. They gradually destroy the organ as they become larger, leading to kidney failure. Echinostoma worms are much smaller, up to 1cm in length. Heavy infection can lead to inflammation of the intestinal lining.

“As writing was only introduced to Britain centuries later with the Romans, these people were unable to record what happened to them during their lives. This research enables us for the first time to clearly understand the infectious diseases experienced by prehistoric people living in the Fens,” said Ledger.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge team worked with colleagues at the ̽��ֱ�� of Bristol’s Organic Chemistry Unit to determine whether coprolites excavated from around the houses were human or animal. While some were human, others were from dogs.

“Both humans and dogs were infected by similar parasitic worms, which suggests the humans were sharing their food or leftovers with their dogs,” said Ledger.

Other parasites that infect animals were also found at the site, including pig whipworm and Capillaria worm. It is thought that they originated from the butchery and consumption of the intestines of farmed or hunted animals, but probably did not cause humans any harm.

̽��ֱ��researchers compared their latest data with previous studies on ancient parasites from both the Bronze Age and Neolithic. Must Farm tallies with the trend of fewer parasite species found at Bronze Age compared with Neolithic sites.

“Our study fits with the broader pattern of a shrinking of the parasite ecosystem through time,” said Mitchell. “Changes in diet, sanitation and human-animal relationships over millennia have affected rates of parasitic infection.” Although he points out that infections from the fish tapeworm found at Must Farm have seen a recent resurgence due to the popularity of sushi, smoked salmon and ceviche.

“We now need to study other sites in prehistoric Britain where people lived different lifestyles, to help us understand how our ancestors’ way of life affected their risk of developing infectious diseases,” added Mitchell.

̽��ֱ��Must Farm site is an exceptionally well-preserved settlement dating to 900-800 BC (the Late Bronze Age). ̽��ֱ��site was first discovered in 1999. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge Archaeological Unit carried out a major excavation between 2015 and 2016, funded by Historic England and Forterra Building Products Ltd.

Coprolites from the Must Farm archaeological excavation in East Anglia shows the prehistoric inhabitants were infected by parasitic worms that can be spread by eating raw fish, frogs and shellfish.

Consumption of aquatic organisms from the surrounding area created an ideal nexus for infection

Marissa Ledger

Left: Marissa Ledger. Right: D. Webb

Left: Microscopic egg of a fish tapeworm. Right: Must Farm excavation.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Unusually sophisticated prehistoric monuments and technology revealed in the heart of the Aegean

lmb97 — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 11:42:54 +0000

New work at the settlement of Dhaskalio, the site adjoining the prehistoric sanctuary on the Cycladic island of Keros, has shown this to be a more imposing and densely occupied series of structures than had previously been realised, and one of the most impressive sites of the Aegean during the Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BC).

Until recently, the island of Keros, located in the Cyclades, south of Naxos, was known for ritual activities dating from 4,500 years ago involving broken marble figurines. Now new excavations are showing that the promontory of Dhaskalio (now a tiny islet because of sea level rise), at the west end of the island next to the sanctuary, was almost entirely covered by remarkable monumental constructions built using stone brought painstakingly from Naxos, some 10km distant.

Professor Colin Renfrew of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Co-Director of the excavation, suggested that the promontory, with its narrow causeway to the main island, “may have become a focus because it formed the best natural harbour on Keros, and had an excellent view of the north, south and west Aegean”.

̽��ֱ��promontory was naturally shaped like a pyramid, and the skilled builders of Dhaskalio enhanced this shape by creating a series of massive terrace walls which made it look more like a stepped pyramid. On the flat surfaces formed by the terraces, the builders used stone imported from Naxos to construct impressive, gleaming structures.

̽��ֱ��research team, led by archaeologists from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, the Ephorate of the Cyclades and the Cyprus Institute, have calculated that more than 1000 tons of stone were imported, and that almost every possible space on the island was built on, giving the impression of a single large monument jutting out of the sea. ̽��ֱ��complex is the largest known in the Cyclades at the time.

Renfrew noted that “investigations at multiple points throughout the site have given unique insight into how the architecture was organised and how people moved about the built environment”.

While excavating an impressive staircase in the lower terraces, archaeologists began to see the technical sophistication of this civilisation 1000 years before the famous palaces of the Mycenaeans. Underneath the stairs and within the walls they discovered sophisticated systems of drainage, signalling that the architecture was multipurpose and carefully planned in advance. Tests are now underway to discover whether the drains were for managing clean water or sewage.

What was the reason for this massive undertaking here?

̽��ֱ��rituals practised in the nearby sanctuary meant that this was already an important central place for the Cycladic islanders. Another aspect of the expansion of Dhaskalio is the use of new agricultural practices, whose study is led by Dr Evi Margaritis of the Cyprus Institute. She says: “Dhaskalio has already provided important evidence about the cultivation of olive and grape, two key new domesticates that expanded the horizons of agriculture in the third millennium. ̽��ֱ��environmental programme is revealing how agricultural strategies developed through the lifetime of the site.”

̽��ֱ��excavated soil of the site is being examined in great detail for tiny clues in the form of burnt seeds, phytoliths (plant remnants preserved as silica), burnt wood, and animal and fish bones. Lipid and starch analysis on pottery and grinding stones is giving clues about food production and consumption.

Plant remains have been recovered in carbonised form, predominantly pulses and fruits such as grape, olives, figs and almonds, but also cereals such as emmer wheat and barley. Margaritis notes: “Keros was probably not self-sustaining, meaning that much of this food was imported: in the light of this evidence we need to reconsider what we know about existing networks to include food exchange”.

Another clue may be found in metalworking, the most important new technology of the third millennium BC. ̽��ֱ��inhabitants of Dhaskalio were proficient metalworkers, and the evidence for the associated technologies is strong everywhere on the site. No metal ore sources are located on Keros, so all raw materials were imported from elsewhere (other Cycladic islands such as Seriphos or Kythnos, or the mainland).

These imported ores were smelted just to the north of the sanctuary, where the winds were strongest, needed to achieve the very high temperatures required to extract metals from ores. Within the buildings of Dhaskalio, the melting of metals and casting of objects were commonplace.

̽��ֱ��new excavations have found two metalworking workshops, full of metalworking debris and related objects. In one of these rooms a lead axe was found, with a mould used for making copper daggers, along with dozens of ceramic fragments (such as tuyères, the ceramic end of a bellows, used to force air into the fire to increase its temperature) covered in copper spills. In another room, which only appeared at the end of excavation this year, the top of an intact clay oven was found, indicating another metalworking area, which will be excavated next year.

What is the significance of the metalworking finds?

Dr Michael Boyd of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Co-Director of the excavation, says: “At a time when access to raw materials and skills was very limited, metalworking expertise seems to have been very much concentrated at Dhaskalio. What we are seeing here with the metalworking and in other ways is the beginnings of urbanisation: centralisation, meaning the drawing of far-flung communities into networks centred on the site, intensification in craft or agricultural production, aggrandisement in architecture, and the gradual subsuming of the ritual aspects of the sanctuary within the operation of the site. This gives us a clear insight into social change at Dhaskalio, from the earlier days where activities were centred on ritual practices in the sanctuary to the growing power of Dhaskalio itself in its middle years.”

̽��ֱ��excavations on Keros are leading the charge of technical innovation in Aegean archaeology. All data are recorded digitally, using a new system called iDig – an app that runs on Apple’s iPads. For the first time in the Aegean, not only data from the excavation, but the results of study in the laboratory are all recorded in the same system, meaning that anyone on the excavation has access to all available data in real time. Three dimensional models are created at every stage in the digging process using a technique called photogrammetry; at the end of each season the trenches are recorded in detail by the Cyprus Institute’s laser scanning team.

̽��ֱ��Cyprus Institute co-organised for a second year an educational programme during this year’s excavations with Cambridge ̽��ֱ��. Students from Greece, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada, and the UK joined the excavation and gained valuable experience of up to the minute excavation and scientific techniques. ̽��ֱ��syllabus epitomised the twin goals of promoting science in archaeology and establishing the highest standards of teaching and research.

̽��ֱ��project is organised under the auspices of the British School at Athens and conducted with permission of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sport. ̽��ֱ��project is directed by Colin Renfrew and Michael Boyd of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��project is supported by the Institute for Aegean Prehistory, the Cyprus Institute, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, the British Academy, the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, National Geographic Society, Cosmote, Blue Star Lines, EZ-dot and private donors.

New excavations on the remote island of Keros reveal monumental architecture and technological sophistication at the dawn of the Cycladic Bronze Age.

At a time when access to raw materials and skills was very limited, metalworking expertise seems to have been very much concentrated at Dhaskalio

Michael Boyd

Cambridge Keros Project

Excavations underway on Dhaskalio, off Keros.

̽��ֱ��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

Most complete Bronze Age wheel to date found at Must Farm near Peterborough

amb206 — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 08:39:12 +0000

Archaeologists working at Must Farm, a Bronze Age site near Peterborough, have uncovered a 3,000-year-old wheel, the first and largest complete example ever to be discovered in Britain.

̽��ֱ��find, which will broaden our understanding of Late Bronze Age life, is the latest from a settlement described as Peterborough’s Pompeii. ̽��ֱ��large wooden round houses, built on stilts, plunged into a river after a dramatic fire 3,000 years ago.

Thought to date from 1100-800 BC, the ancient wooden wheel is one metre in diameter and has been so well preserved by the silt that it still contains its hub. An incomplete Bronze Age wheel was found nearby at Flag Fen in the 1990s but the Must Farm find is unprecedented in terms of size and completeness.

̽��ֱ��discovery poses challenges to what is known about the Late Bronze Age in terms of the technology available 3,000 years ago.

Duncan Wilson, Chief Executive of Historic England, said: “This remarkable but fragile wooden wheel is the earliest complete example ever found in Britain. ̽��ֱ��existence of this wheel expands our understanding of Late Bronze Age technology and the level of sophistication of the lives of people living on the edge of the Fens 3,000 years ago.”

̽��ֱ��find is the latest in a series of discoveries at the Must Farm site which is providing an extraordinary insight into domestic life 3,000 years ago. Excavation has already revealed circular wooden houses believed to be the best–preserved Bronze Age dwellings ever found in Britain.

̽��ֱ��large wheel was unearthed just a few metres away from the biggest round house on the site. Other exciting finds include a wooden platter, small wooden box and rare small bowls and jars with food remains inside, as well as exceptional textiles and Bronze Age tools. After a catastrophic fire, the houses collapsed into a slow-moving and silty river, which preserved their contents in amazing detail.

David Gibson, Archaeological Manager at the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, Division of Archaeology, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��discovery of the wheel demonstrates that the inhabitants of this watery landscape had links to the dry land beyond the river.”

̽��ֱ��Must Farm site is located at a quarry run by Forterra. Brian Chapman, Head of Land and Mineral Resources, said: “This is an incredible project which we are delighted to be part of. We understand that the discovery of the wheel is of national importance. We are committed to helping uncover the remaining secrets of this unique site at Must Farm and look forward to working with our partners over the coming months.”

Kasia Gdaniec, Senior Archaeologist for Cambridgeshire County Council, said: “Among the wealth of other fabulous artefacts and the new structural remains of round houses built over this river channel, this site continues to amaze and astonish us with its insight into prehistoric life, the latest being the discovery of this wooden wheel. Believed to be the most complete example yet found from this period, this wheel poses a challenge to our understanding of both Late Bronze Age technological skill and, together with the eight boats recovered from the same river in 2011, transportation.”

Historic England (formerly known as English Heritage) and building products supplier Forterra are funding a major £1.1 million project to excavate 1,100 square metres of the Must Farm quarry site in Cambridgeshire. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge Archaeological Unit, Division of Archaeology, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is over half way through the excavation which is taking place because of concerns about the location and future preservation of the site.

̽��ֱ��remains cannot be preserved indefinitely in situ and need to be recorded and analysed so that the unique site of Must Farm can expand our knowledge of the Bronze Age.

Once the excavation is finished, the team will take the finds for further analysis and conservation. Eventually, the objects will be displayed at Peterborough Museum, Flag Fen 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.

̽��ֱ��oldest Bronze Age wheel in Britain is the Flag Fen wheel which dates to c1300 BC but is incomplete and is smaller at 0.8m in diameter. Part of a Late Bronze Age wooden wheel is also known from Lingwood Fen near Cottenham in Cambridgeshire. In Europe, the earliest wheels date to at least 2,500 BC, in the Copper Age.

̽��ֱ��Must Farm site is close to modern-day 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 eight well-preserved log boats in 2011.

These finds 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, man-made hill dwellings in the Netherlands.

Adapted from a press release by Historic England.

Inset images: Excavation of Bronze Age Wheel at Must Farm one metre in diameter, with hub clearly visible (Copyright Cambridge Archaeological Unit, photo by Dave Webb).

̽��ֱ��largest and best-preserved Bronze Age wheel in Britain has been uncovered at Must Farm, a site described as Peterborough’s Pompeii. ̽��ֱ��wheel will extend our understanding of early technologies and transport systems.

̽��ֱ��discovery of the wheel demonstrates that the inhabitants of this watery landscapes had links to the dry land beyond the river.

David Gibson

Excavation of Bronze Age Wheel at Must Farm one metre in diameter, with hub clearly visible.

̽��ֱ��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

Plague in humans ‘twice as old’ but didn’t begin as flea-borne, ancient DNA reveals

fpjl2 — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 16:09:48 +0000

New research using ancient DNA has revealed that plague has been endemic in human populations for more than twice as long as previously thought.

̽��ֱ��study suggests that ancestral plague would have been spread by human-to-human contact – until genetic mutations allowed Yersinia pestis (Y. pestis), the bacterium that causes plague, to survive in the gut of fleas.

These mutations, which may have occurred near the turn of the 1st millennium BC, gave rise to the bubonic form of plague that spreads at terrifying speed through flea – and consequently rat – carriers. ̽��ֱ��bubonic plague caused the pandemics that decimated global populations, including the Black Death, which wiped out half the population of Europe in the 14th century.

Before its flea-borne evolution, however, researchers say that plague was in fact endemic in the human populations of Eurasia at least 3,000 years before the first plague pandemic in historical records (the Plague of Justinian in 541 AD).

They say the new evidence that Y. pestis bacterial infection in humans actually emerged around the beginning of the Bronze Age suggests that plague may have been responsible for major population declines believed to have occurred in the late 4th and early 3rd millennium BC.

̽��ֱ��work was conducted by an international team including researchers from the universities of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Cambridge, UK, and the findings are published today in the journal Cell.

“We found that the Y. pestis lineage originated and was widespread much earlier than previously thought, and we narrowed the time window as to when and how it developed,” said senior author Professor Eske Willerslev, who recently joined Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Department of Zoology from the ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen.

“ ̽��ֱ��underlying mechanisms that facilitated the evolution of Y. pestis are present even today. Learning from the past may help us understand how future pathogens may arise and evolve,” he said.

Researchers analysed ancient genomes extracted from the teeth of 101 adults dating from the Bronze Age and found across the Eurasian landmass.

They found Y. pestis bacteria in the DNA of seven of the adults, the oldest of whom died 5,783 years ago – the earliest evidence of plague. Previously, direct molecular evidence for Y. pestis had not been obtained from skeletal material older than 1,500 years.

However, six of the seven plague samples were missing two key genetic components found in most modern strains of plague: a “virulence gene” called ymt, and a mutation in an “activator gene” called pla.

̽��ֱ��ymt gene protects the bacteria from being destroyed by the toxins in flea guts, so that it multiplies, choking the flea’s digestive tract. This causes the starving flea to frantically bite anything it can, and, in doing so, spread the plague.

̽��ֱ��mutation in the pla gene allows Y. pestis bacteria to spread across different tissues, turning the localised lung infection of pneumonic plague into one of the blood and lymph nodes.

Researchers concluded these early strains of plague could not have been carried by fleas without ymt. Nor could they cause bubonic plague – which affects the lymphatic immune system, and inflicts the infamous swollen buboes of the Black Death – without the pla mutation.

Consequently, the plague that stalked populations for much of the Bronze Age must have been pneumonic, which directly affects the respiratory system and causes desperate, hacking coughing fits just before death. Breathing around infected people leads to inhalation of the bacteria, the crux of its human-to-human transmission.

Study co-author Dr Marta Mirazón-Lahr, from Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies (LCHES), points out that a study earlier this year from Willerslev’s Copenhagen group showed the Bronze Age to be a highly active migratory period, which could have led to the spread of pneumonic plague.

“ ̽��ֱ��Bronze Age was a period of major metal weapon production, and it is thought increased warfare, which is compatible with emerging evidence of large population movements at the time. If pneumonic plague was carried as part of these migrations, it would have had devastating effects on small groups they encountered,” she said.

“Well-documented cases have shown the pneumonic plague’s chain of infection can go from a single hunter or herder to ravaging an entire community in two to three days.”

̽��ֱ��most recent of the seven ancient genomes to reveal Y. pestis in the new study has both of the key genetic mutations, indicating an approximate timeline for the evolution that spawned flea-borne bubonic plague.

“Among our samples, the mutated plague strain is first observed in Armenia in 951 BC, yet is absent in the next most recent sample from 1686 BC – suggesting bubonic strains evolve and become fixed in the late 2nd and very early 1st millennium BC,” said Mirazón-Lahr.

“However, the 1686 BC sample is from the Altai mountains near Mongolia. Given the distance between Armenia and Altai, it’s also possible that the Armenian strain of bubonic plague has a longer history in the Middle East, and that historical movements during the 1st millennium BC exported it elsewhere.”

̽��ֱ��Books of Samuel in the Bible describe an outbreak of plague among the Philistines in 1320 BC, complete with swellings in the groin, which the World Health Organization has argued fits the description of bubonic plague. Mirazón-Lahr suggests this may support the idea of a Middle Eastern origin for the plague’s highly lethal genetic evolution.

Co-author Professor Robert Foley, also from Cambridge’s LCHES, suggests that the lethality of bubonic plague may have required the right population demography before it could thrive.

“Every pathogen has a balance to maintain. If it kills a host before it can spread, it too reaches a ‘dead end’. Highly lethal diseases require certain demographic intensity to sustain them.

“ ̽��ֱ��endemic nature of pneumonic plague was perhaps more adapted for an earlier Bronze Age population. Then, as Eurasian societies grew in complexity and trading routes continued to open up, maybe the conditions started to favour the more lethal form of plague,” Foley said.

“ ̽��ֱ��Bronze Age is the edge of history, and ancient DNA is making what happened at this critical time more visible,” he said.

Willerslev added: “These results show that the ancient DNA has the potential not only to map our history and prehistory, but also discover how disease may have shaped it.”

Inset image: Map showing where the remains of the Bronze Age plague victims were found.

New research dates plague back to the early Bronze Age, showing it had been endemic in humans across Eurasia for millennia prior to the first recorded global outbreak, and that ancestral plague mutated into its bubonic, flea-borne form between the 2nd and 1st millennium BC.

These results show that the ancient DNA has the potential not only to map our history and prehistory, but also discover how disease may have shaped it

Eske Willerslev

Left: Natalia Shishlina. Right: Centres for Disease Control and Prevention

Left: Skull of a Yamnaya, the people who migrated to Central Asia in early Bronze Age and developed the Afanasievo culture. ̽��ֱ��Afanasievo are one of the Bronze Age groups carrying Y. pestis. Right: Scanning Electron Micrograph Of A Flea

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

Yes