Must Farm is a Bronze Age archeological site consisting of five houses raised on stilts above a river and built around 950 BC in Cambridgeshire, England.[1] The settlement is exceptionally well preserved because of its sudden destruction by catastrophic fire and subsequent collapse onto oxygen-depleted river silts. [2][3]
The site is on the bed of a now-defunct river in Flag Fen basin,[4] around 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) south of Flag Fen itself.
The site has been described as "Britain's Pompeii" because of its condition[1][5] and was named Best Archaeological Project and Best Archaeological Discovery at the 2012 British Archaeological Awards, and Best Discovery at the 2016 Awards.[6][7] An article describing the settlement won the Antiquity Prize 2020.[2][8]
Wooden posts were first recognised at the site in 1999, leading to preliminary excavations in 2004 and 2006.[9] Early finds at the site include a rapier and a sword in 1969. Between 2011 and 2012, eight Bronze Agelog boats were discovered.[4] The boats were found in a small freshwater palaeochannel and were preserved because of waterlogging.[10]
Radiocarbon dating has indicated that the ages of these boats spanned a period of about 1,000 years, with the earliest examples dating to around 1750–1650 BCE.[11] Some of the boats may have been deliberately sunk.[12] They are now preserved at Flag Fen and are available to view on guided tours.[13]
Bronze Age woven wooden fish traps and wattle-hurdle fish weirs were found in the same channel, together with metalwork including swords and spears.[10]
Simplified elevation cross-section of a typical house at Must Farm[14]
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Remains of a house at Must Farm showing the unburnt stumps of posts under the waterline during the fire (top-right) and collapsed joists (bottom-left)
Simplified excavation site plan[15]
In September 2015,[10] the University of Cambridge's Cambridge Archaeological Unit began a dig, eventually covering 1,100 square metres (1,300 sq yd),[4] the details of which were publicly disclosed in January 2016.[citation needed]
Historic England funded a £1.1 million project to excavate the site to gain as much knowledge of Bronze Age life in Britain as possible.[5] Archaeologists found two roundhouses, from about 1000–800 BCE, and concluded that they were damaged by fire and that the platform on which they sat then slid into the river, where the fire was extinguished and the buildings and objects within them were preserved in the silt.[5][4][16] About half of the settlement is thought to have been lost to modern-day quarrying.[9]
In 2016 a large wooden wheel of about 1 m (3.3 ft) in diameter was uncovered at the site. The specimen, dating from 1,100 to 800 years BCE, represents the most complete and earliest of its type found in Britain. The wheel's hub is also present. A horse's spine found nearby suggests the wheel may have been part of a horse-drawn cart. The find "expands our understanding of late Bronze Age technology", said Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, which was co-funding the project.[17] As of August 2016[update], the archaeology had been removed and the site reburied to be left sealed.[18]
In 2019 researchers at Cambridge and Bristol universities revealed the results of a study of human and dog coprolites found at the site. They discovered the presence of fish tapeworms, echinostoma worms, capillaria worms and giant kidney worms. The research shows the earliest evidence of human infection by these parasites in Britain.[19][20]
The dig was the subject of a BBC Television documentary, Britain's Pompeii: A Village Lost in Time, first broadcast on BBC Four on 2 August 2016.[21] The excavation became known for its extensive digital outreach.[22]
Knight, M., Ballantyne, R., Brudenell, M., Cooper, A., Gibson, D., & Robinson Zeki, I. (2024). Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement: Volume 1. Landscape, architecture and occupation. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.[23]
