Must Farm Pile-Dwelling Settlement

Must Farm

United Kingdom · Cambridgeshire, England

SettlementExcavation completed
Approximate period850 BCE — 850 BCELate Bronze Age; short-lived settlement around 850 BC See on the map ↓

In brief

The settlement, supported on piles over a river, collapsed into the water after a fire and was preserved in sediment. Excavations in 2015–2016 documented the structure of the houses and their everyday objects in detail.

What was found?

  • 1Wooden houses on piles

    The wooden remains of roundhouses raised above a watercourse were found. The buildings, which collapsed in a fire, provide an opportunity to study the construction and internal arrangement of the houses.

  • 2Vessels with food remains

    Some vessels were preserved with meal and cereal remains inside them. These allow everyday diet to be investigated directly.

  • 3Textile and fiber fragments

    Fine linen textiles, threads and other plant-fiber products were recovered. These materials, which normally perish easily, reveal the quality of textile production.

  • 4Wooden wheel

    Well-preserved wooden wheel finds provide data on transportation technology. According to researchers, they show the wetland settlement's connection with the surrounding dry land.

  • 5Bronze tools

    The metal finds include bronze axe heads. Their preservation together with the houses allows the place of tools in everyday life to be studied.

What does it point to?

The houses, vessels and textiles indicate a community skilled in timber construction and textile production. According to researchers, the wheels and agricultural finds show that life above the water went hand in hand with production and transportation on dry land.

What did it teach us?

  1. It made the internal arrangement of Late Bronze Age houses open to investigation through the positions in which their contents collapsed.
  2. It documented the production of fine textiles from plant fibers.
  3. It showed the close relationship of a wetland community with the dry-land economy.
  4. It showed that everyday objects left in waterlogged mud after a fire could be preserved in extraordinary detail.

Latest news / selected archive

2024: A comprehensive publication of the excavation results presented new analyses of the household layout, food and textiles of the settlement dating to around 850 BC.

Record

Culture
British Late Bronze Age
Team / historical
Cambridge Archaeological Unit
Coordinates
52.5552°, -0.1773°

Sources

  1. mustfarm.com
  2. arch.cam.ac.uk
  3. en.wikipedia.org
  4. historicengland.org.uk
  5. Cambridge Üniversitesi — Must Farm'da gündelik yaşam buluntuları

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