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Entitled A Book of Sites (see ‘Further reading’ below), this new CAU volume adds to some 20 previous monographs and more than 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals reporting on large-scale fieldwork in the Cambridgeshire Fens, which began in the 1990s. Excavating such a large area brings its own rewards in understanding the impact of human activity on an entire landscape over several millennia.
Straightening and embankment work that began in the 17th century means that the River Great Ouse today looks like a single watercourse. In prehistory, however, this was a braided river with numerous islands and ridges that were bounded and sculpted by the river’s multiple palaeochannels. The middle and lower reaches of many other rivers in Britain and Europe probably had a similar character, so the fieldwork undertaken by the CAU has significance that stretches beyond the local area. It helps us understand how prehistoric people exploited river and marshland resources at a time when farming communities were first being established and the landscape was being transformed by human intervention.
As the title suggests, this latest volume contains a comprehensive account of investigations across 21 sites along both banks of the River Great Ouse south-west of Earith, representing 16 years of fieldwork. This is the fourth volume in the CAU’s ‘Archaeology of the Lower Ouse Valley’ series, most of which are available as free downloads from the CAU website. The first two are concerned with the archaeology of Colne Fen, north of Earith, while the third, Twice-crossed River, reports on the extraordinary Godwin Ridge sequence at Barleycroft/Over (CA 325). The latter also describes a small artificial platform, 7-10m (23-33ft) wide, located at the western end of the ridge, which had been used during the Bronze and Iron Ages as a ritual site for the deposition of metalwork and weaving combs, as well as the remains of humans, wild birds, and domestic animals.
The current book covers fieldwork on the western river terraces and the mid-stream islands. It is a bumper volume, at 733 pages, with numerous specialist reports supported by high-quality illustrations, representing a commendable degree of methodological consistency over the long-running research programme, such that effective comparisons can be made across time and space. Still, this presents challenges, as the main author, Chris Evans, explains, particularly when new knowledge gained from more recent excavations challenges the thinking that informed previous conclusions.
Essentially, the fieldwork consisted of sampling the undisturbed soil horizon through 1m2 test-pits dug at intervals ranging from 20m to 100m (65-330ft). The 90 litres (20 gallons) of soil recovered from each of these many hundreds of test-pits were then hand-sorted for artefacts. This approach enabled the team to identify areas with a particularly high density of finds, which were then sampled at more frequent intervals. Larger-scale excavation was undertaken where the density warranted it or where there was an opportunity to clarify the phasing of features and the relationships between them.
This approach helps provide a deeper understanding of settlement patterning and density, as well as the various ways in which a major river was used in prehistory. It reveals how our ancestors brought the wild landscape into cultivation and created spaces for dwellings, food production, ritual, and burials, while also highlighting how the river functioned as a landscape corridor and as a territorial divide.
Neolithic origins
The many statistical tables that build through all the volumes (for example, arrowheads by type, pottery and pits per period, and by landscapes zones) indicate that the first major phase of human activity dates to between 3900 and 3700 calBC, probably reflecting occupation by small family units within a landscape of steadily increasing woodland clearance.
Pollen analysis reveals a primarily open post-glacial landscape, dominated by grassland with small groves of alder and juniper, as well as oak, lime, and pine in the vicinity. This was low-lying land, rising sometimes as little as 1.5m (5ft) above the river level, with a high water table. The waterlogged soil meant that larger trees had shallow root systems, while soil erosion and heavy rain left them vulnerable to strong gusts of wind. Most of the sites were marked by tree-throw hollows of early Neolithic date.
When trees are uprooted in this way, they create a pit where the root ball used to be. Those found during the CAU’s fieldwork typically had a crescent-shaped plan, with the inner edge of the hollow sharp and vertical and the outer edge forming a more gradual slope. Flint, pottery, and charcoal were found in many of the hollows, particularly within the deeper portions of the throws. It is possible that these pits were used as convenient, ready-made places for the burial of rubbish. Alternatively, they might represent ‘natural deposition’, whereby artefacts lying on the surface entered the hollow when the tree overturned or were washed into it by rain. The up-ended roots of these abundant tree throws might also have provided a convenient wall from which to drape skins to create temporary or longer-term shelters.
The landscape was pockmarked by numerous pits as well. At Barleycroft Farm, for example, more than 90 pits dating from the early Neolithic period were excavated and found to contain worked and burnt flint, hazelnut shells, charcoal, and pottery. Some of the pits were dominated by Mildenhall Ware flint-tempered bowl sherds, decorated with patterns of stabbed dots and short incised lines, dating to around 3700-3400 BC.
These pits were probably primarily dug for access to water or for food storage, so the artefacts within them represent a secondary use. Archaeologists are always alert to the possibility that pit contents represent structured deposition, where material is carefully selected for symbolic or ritual purposes. A degree of patterning was identified on Barleycroft Farm’s North Field site, consisting of five pairs of closely spaced pits – ranging from 10cm (4 inches) to 80cm (31 inches) apart – and eight individual pits. The latter were aligned with each other and were larger than the paired pits. They also contained few artefacts, with a predominance of flint over pottery. By contrast, the paired pits had considerable quantities of both, with more pottery than flint.
While there appears to be a pattern to these deposits, the report concludes that the pit fills related to secondary mass dumping of the material rather than their primary ‘placement’. The pit assemblages probably represent the disposal of previously accumulated midden materials. A total of 2,685 worked flints and 1,590 pottery sherds were recovered from the site and the detailed specialist reports help to shed light on the site’s chronology, suggestive of a long-term but probably seasonal occupation – a pattern seen across all the sites investigated by the CAU along this stretch of the Great Ouse.
The abundance of hazelnut shells and flint arrowheads within the pits reflects a continuing emphasis on foraging and hunting alongside agricultural practices during the region’s earliest Neolithic phases, as does the occasional occurrence of red deer and aurochs bone. Low numbers of pike and bird bones attest to fishing and fowling. On the whole, though, the faunal assemblages show that cattle dominated the Neolithic and succeeding Bronze Age agricultural economy (representing as much as 58% of the faunal assemblage at some sites) but with a high proportion (38%) of pig bones at others.
Pollen analysis reveals that cereals (including barley, spelt, and emmer wheat) formed from 1.1% to 3.6% of the record from the early Neolithic, along with ribwort plantain and buttercup, both of which are plants associated with cultivated land. Sloes, wild cherries, apple/pear, and rosehips were found as charred plant remains in one Bronze Age cremation, suggesting their symbolic role. Deadly nightshade – a drug that induces a sense of flying – was found in what the report describes as a possible ‘shaman’s pit’, which also contained a human skull placed within an arrangement of antlers.
Building up the Bronze Age
With the middle Bronze Age (1500-1000 BC), we begin to see the establishment of small settlements, along with pits, waterholes, and parts of field systems, as the landscape was regularised and subdivided. The remains of similar field systems have been traced in earlier CAU fieldwork over an area extending to some 10ha (25 acres). Elsewhere in the Fenland landscape (for example, at Fengate), these represent large-scale agricultural activity, characterised by planned and regular fields that are bounded by enclosure ditches and stock-proof fencing, supplied with watering holes, and linked by droveways.
In this stretch of the River Great Ouse, though, the field systems were much more varied in size and character. At Barleycroft Farm’s North Field site, for example, eight linear ditches were laid-out perpendicular to the local contour, so that the general east–west orientation of these ditches altered as the contour curved. Four north–south ditches were set perpendicular to these, to enclose field blocks measuring from 125m long (410ft) and 75m (250ft) wide to 130m long (430ft) and 80m (260ft) wide. Many were linked by gaps in the ditches, where the ditch terminals ended short of one another, providing access between them.
At White Bridge Farm, however, the main axes were more north-north-east to south-south-west in orientation, and there was a clear delineation between the field system and the immediate area’s riverside system, perhaps representing in-field portions dedicated to crop growing and outer-field grazing plots. Alternatively, the differences in form could reflect landholding patterns with each block of fields belonging to a different family or kin-group.
The picture of land ‘ownership’ is further complicated by a series of post alignments. Consisting of many hundreds of post-holes, these transgressed or ignored many of the earlier field boundaries. At Barleycroft Farm’s southern arm, nine separate post-rows were traced, representing three stylistically distinct building-types with divergent orientations. Five were oriented east–west, featuring large, closely spaced posts. Three were oriented north–south, featuring larger, widely spaced posts terminating in ‘T’-shaped arrangements. The last was a slight outlier, oriented north-west to south-east and utilising small, widely spaced posts. While the settings were essentially straight along their length, they certainly were not perfect and subtle bowings were apparent; at some points, these were more pronounced, amounting to slight arcs suggesting divergence around standing trees or hummocks.
The post-hole diameters – varying between 17cm (7 inches) and 22cm (9 inches) – attested to the use of c.50-year-old coppiced oak poles, though large-diameter posts were frequently punctuated by smaller ones (or vice versa), forming random patterns of post sizes throughout their lengths. The depths of the posts were also variable – from 20cm (8 inches) to 45cm (18 inches) – indicating that the standing height of the posts may have differed, too. In some instances, the close setting of the posts meant that the post-holes interconnected, producing short post-trench lengths. This occurred particularly, and consistently, on the western ends of the alignments, although some featured this more than others.
The evidence suggests that the post alignments were essentially contemporary with each other, and Chris Evans candidly admits that their function is puzzling and ambiguous. They might have had a ceremonial purpose, serving as ‘viewshed frames’ to direct lines of sight across the landscape. Alternatively, they could represent a different way of dividing and regulating the landscape that came later than, and superseded, the ditched field systems.
A small settlement of three post-built roundhouses gives us a sense of living conditions in this landscape. Two of the roundhouses were aligned on the adjacent field system and were clearly contemporary with it. Situated side-by-side with entrances oriented to the south, the buildings are likely to have been constructed around the same time and were possibly interrelated as a household ‘module’.
More unusual for the period was an aisled longhouse defined by 43 post-holes set in five east–west rows. The central row of seven equally spaced posts was flanked to the north and south by rows of six posts, and these were flanked in turn by rows of 11 posts to the north and 13 posts to the south. The resulting hall was symmetrical through the north–south axis, with this seemingly ‘planned’ arrangement forming a trapezoidal building whose main walls were 15m (49ft) long to the north and 16.35m (54ft) long to the south, with an eastern end wall measuring 5.55m (18ft) and a western gable 5.75m (19ft) long. The east wall was perpendicular to the long walls but the west wall formed an oblique angle, creating a lopsided appearance.
The longhouse was set within a C-shaped compound defined by a ditch. Within the same compound were several deep waterholes and wells (dug down to the water table) and shallower cooking pits and quarries. The rectilinear hall-like structure is exceptional and rare, though not unique. Since its discovery, similar ‘long’ (rather than round) buildings of similar date have been reported in the region at Welland Bank, south Lincolnshire, and at Ampney, near Latton, in Wiltshire, though the closest parallel is that of the long three-post row structure at Down Farm in Cranborne Chase, Dorset, which is also set within a ‘C’- shaped enclosure and preceded or accompanied by roundhouses.
The unusual character of the building raises questions about the use of the building and the status of its owners, as well as the influences on its form and appearance, but the CAU team tend to the practical view that the quasi-trapezoidal plan is a ‘one-off experiment’ in building form.
A sought-after ceremonial landscape
These finds probably represent purely local and small-scale use of the landscape, but there is also much evidence that the islands of the braided river served as burial places that drew participants and their dead from a wider catchment. There was perhaps a spiritual value to this complex and shifting riverine landscape, which was made doubly significant by its liminal location at the point where the Ouse enters the marshland basin of the Fens.
Evidence for the spiritual or symbolic significance of the area is provided by the number of monuments recorded in the landscape. They include a series of long mortuary enclosures and a possible cursus (which future work will confirm). Chris Evans suggests these monuments might be intended to mimic a watercourse, strategically positioned in the landscape to turn the mortuary enclosure into another island, with the river to one side and the cursus and enclosures to the other.
Above all, this is a landscape of numerous Bronze Age barrows and ring ditches. Chapter 5 – almost a book in itself – deals with some of the most remarkable finds, including a group of riverside barrows and a ringwork excavated by students taking part in the annual Cambridge University training digs from 1998 to 2006. The early Bronze Age Barrow 2 in this group is singled out for extensive analysis, demonstrating just how complex such monuments can be. Surviving to a height of 1m (3.3ft), the plough marks in the upper surface indicate a probable reduction to about half its final height.
Cut into the mound were numerous secondary interments, including nine possible cremation deposits. One was of an infant who was probably cremated in situ, while another was buried in a small collared urn. In addition, an adult female had been buried with three Kimmeridge shale studs. She had been laid on her left-hand side, with her head to the east, in a tightly crouched position, her left hand by her face and her right arm resting on her left elbow. The position of the studs in relation to the body suggest that two of them were ear studs and the third was a labret (lip or chin piercing).
The heavily scorched sides of the barrow’s primary cremation indicated that this was a bustum burial, a mode of cremation where the pyre is constructed over a pit which the cremated remains fall into as the pyre collapses. The pit’s stratigraphy showed that two phases of burning occurred: the lower deposit represents the remains of an adult (possibly female) while the later deposit contains the remains of another adult (also possibly female) and an infant. The absence of large quantities of charcoal in the second deposit suggests that the deceased individuals were cremated on a pyre elsewhere and the bones then interred in the pit. The grave goods from the bustum burial included eight clumps of textile and 64 textile fragments, which are the earliest examples of flax-weaving known from Britain to-date. Some of the fragments could have come from a shroud or winding sheets (burnt bone-pins were also found that might have been used to secure a shroud), but the eight folded, layered textile clumps are more likely to have formed a mattress for the deceased, or they could instead represent the deliberate sacrifice of high-quality textiles as part of the funerary rite. As noted above, the charred fruits of sloe, wild cherry, apple/pear, and rosehip were found in the ash, too – fruits perhaps chosen to add colour to the pyre and indicative of a late summer or early autumn funeral.
Barrow 8, another member of the group, proved to be a complicated monument that originated as a Neolithic oval barrow that was then transformed during the early Bronze Age into a pond barrow, consisting of an inner pond-like depression with a central inhumation and several cremations, as well as an outer surrounding ditch of ovoid plan. Between the two was a substantial bank into which additional cremations had been placed, and the whole monument was enclosed by a ditch. The depression was subsequently filled with middle Bronze Age midden deposits, suggesting either that it was no longer considered significant or that it was subject to a deliberate act of erasure.
Barrow 8 is one of three pond barrows that have now been excavated in the Overs landscape and others are known in Cambridgeshire. Most monuments of this type, however, are found in Wiltshire. They appear to be a largely southern phenomenon, whose origins lay in the chalk downs with the shallow central depression excavated to expose the white chalk surface. Barrow 8 and the other two examples are thus northern outliers and, like the longhouse and C-shaped enclosure, raise questions about the influence of cultural traditions from other parts of Britain on the settlements and burial sites of the Great Ouse landscape.
We are promised a further exploration of this issue in the next volume when the results of the project’s isotopic analyses of human remains will be brought to bear. What ultimately emerges from the mass of data presented in this volume, however, is a sense that this part of the landscape consisted of a mosaic of habitats that supported communities of transhumant pastoralists and arable farmers who took advantage of the region’s fertile soils, abundant water, and seasonal grazing. The inhabitants of this landscape would also from time-to-time witness – and perhaps help to facilitate – the arrival of outside communities for funerary rites, bringing their dead from a much wider catchment, with watercourses and mid-stream islands as key determinants in the choice of location.
All images: Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU), unless otherwise stated
