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Waterlands: Prehistoric Life at Bar Pasture, Pode Hole Quarry,
Peterborough recounts a decade-long archaeological investigation at
Bar Pasture Farm, Pode Hole Quarry, Peterborough, and represents
one of the most significant landscape excavations carried out in
recent years. The 55-hectare archaeological dig was the scene of
human activity on the fenland edge from the Mesolithic through to
the Late Iron Age, although the majority of the evidence covered
the period from the Early Neolithic through to the Middle Bronze
Age. Throughout prehistory, the fen edge has represented a
landscape at the margins of human habitation and exploitation.
During the Early Neolithic, a substantial waterhole complex with
signs of later visitation was established on the fen edge. Traces
of several Beaker buildings provided elusive evidence of slightly
later activity further inland, whilst during the Early Bronze Age
proper, a number of impressive burial mounds were constructed
within a dedicated ‘Barrow Field’. One barrow contained the
nationally significant remains of an infant burial on a birch bark
mat with associated grave goods. The Middle Bronze Age saw the
entire re-organisation of the surrounding landscape by the creation
of an extensive, rectilinear field system, served by multiple
droveways and associated with a classic enclosed farmstead. The
placement of later Middle Bronze Age cremation burials within the
remains of earlier burial monuments bears witness to the intimate
connection of this small community to their ancestors’ sacred
landscape. By the 4th century BC, settlement was all but abandoned
due to marine inundations, although one slightly elevated part of
the landscape formed an area of refuge for an Iron Age smith and
his family, who created an isolated and significant smithy.
Archaeological excavation of about 11ha of land at Towers Fen,
Thorney, Peterborough (England), investigated part of an extensive
pattern of ditched enclosures and fields associated with several
waterholes and two ponds. One large pit, which may have been a
waterhole, yielded Early Bronze Age pottery and is radiocarbon
dated to the terminal 3rd millennium BC. Two other dates from the
ponds came out at around 1500-1300 BC. The other features were
probably also Middle to Late Bronze Age although the limited
quantity of pottery was not datable precisely. Waterlogged material
recovered from the deeper features included most of an unusual
wooden tub or bucket, as well as other pieces of worked wood. The
palaeo-environmental evidence from pollen, plant macro-fossils,
insects and charred plant remains indicated that the land supported
a mosaic of woodland, scrub, arable fields, meadow and short grazed
grassland. A wide variety of trees was present, particularly
wet-loving species such as willow and alder, and there was abundant
evidence for coppicing. Nearby excavations at Pode Hole, and the
wider picture provided by plotted cropmarks, indicate that the site
formed part of an extensive prehistoric landscape. It is suggested
that the Bronze Age agricultural landscape developed piecemeal and
was based upon a mixed arable and pastoral economy. This contrasts
with Fengate and other landscapes of this period where large-scale
land divisions have been related to intensive livestock management.
The sparse evidence for contemporaneous settlement is typical of
many sites of this period.
Archaeological investigations in response to the expansion of Pode
Hole sand and gravel quarry (Cambridgeshire, east England), exposed
a well-preserved prehistoric Fen-edge landscape covering an area of
approximately 24 hectares. Pottery dates and a series of
radiocarbon determinations reveal that the site was occupied
throughout the second millennium BC, with activity apparently
intensifying later in that period. A substantial assemblage of
locally made Bronze Age pottery and other artefacts was gathered
during the excavations.
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