Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement: Volume 2. Specialist reports

Edited by Rachel Ballantyne, Anwen Cooper, David Gibson, Mark Knight & Iona Robinson Zeki

The Late Bronze Age pile-dwelling settlement at Must Farm is one of the most important and best-preserved prehistoric sites to have been systematically excavated in Europe. The settlement comprised a curving palisade enclosing five stilt-raised houses erected above a freshwater river channel at the edge of one most Britain’s most intensively studied and internationally renowned Bronze Age landscapes: the Flag Fen Basin.

Built in the mid-9th century BC, the pile-dwelling was engulfed by a catastrophic fire less than a year after construction, sending the buildings and their artefact-rich contents into the sluggish waters below. A combination of fire, water and rapid burial ensured extraordinary levels of preservation, whilst the manner of collapse and brevity of settlement gave the structural remains, and their vibrant material assemblages, a pristine quality. Each household had its own inventory comprising combinations of delicate textiles, wooden containers, hafts and wheels, complete pottery sets, bronze toolkits and the scattered remnants of necklaces of glass beads. Food remains included butchered wild and domestic animal bones, charred plants and seeds, and even the burnt residues of individual meals.

This comprehensive and methodologically innovative investigation, incorporating an array of scientific studies and collaborations amongst leading specialists, provides unprecedented insights into the nature of daily life and domestic practice in Bronze Age society. These challenge many expectations about the material worlds that people inhabited, shedding new light on aspects of architecture, material abundance, foodways, woodland management, landscape change and wetland living. The collective results are truly ground-breaking for Wetland Archaeology and wider Bronze Age studies. Volume 1 provides a thematic interpretive synthesis of the site, with a focus on landscape, architecture and occupation, whilst Volume 2 offers in-depth studies of the river setting, construction, dating, material culture and biological remains.

Chapters

• Complete volume - Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement: Volume 2. Specialist reports
• Chapter 1 - Fieldwork methods and research aims
• Chapter 2 - Engaging a wider audience
• Chapter 3 - Diatoms
• Chapter 4 - Ostracods
• Chapter 5 - Coleoptera
• Chapter 6 - Chironomids
• Chapter 7 - Pollen and spores
• Chapter 8 - Small vertebrates
• Chapter 9 - Micromorphology
• Chapter 10 - Structural wood
• Chapter 11 - Charcoal and wood from sieving
• Chapter 12 - Fibres and fabrics
• Chapter 13 - Wooden artefacts
• Chapter 14 - Wooden artefacts use-wear
• Chapter 15 - Pottery
• Chapter 16 - Metalwork
• Chapter 17 - Necklace and beads
• Chapter 18 - Worked flint
• Chapter 19 - Worked and baked clay
• Chapter 20 - Worked stone, unworked stone and unworked flint
• Chapter 21 - Worked bone and antler
• Chapter 22 - Seeds and fruits
• Chapter 23 - Stems, leaves, rhizomes and dung contents
• Chapter 24 - Mosses and fungi
• Chapter 25 - Phytoliths
• Chapter 26 - Large vertebrates
• Chapter 27 - Human bone
• Chapter 28 - Organic residues
• Chapter 29 - Coprolites
• Chapter 30 - Parasites
• Chapter 31 - Stable isotope analysis of seeds and bones
• Chapter 32 - Fire investigation
• Chapter 33 - Chronology

Appendices

• Chapter 1
  • Appendix 1.01 Excavation site grids, 2006 and 2015
  • Appendix 1.02 On-site sieving methods
• Chapter 3
  • Appendix 3.01 Diatom percentage data
• Chapter 4
  • Appendix 4.01 Ostracod procedures
  • Appendix 4.02 Ostracods count data
  • Appendix 4.03 Ostracod habitats and ecology
• Chapter 5
  • Appendix 5.01 Insect count data for the palaeochannel
  • Appendix 5.02 Notes on palaeochannel insect samples
  • Appendix 5.03 Additional conflagration layer insect data
• Chapter 6
  • Appendix 6.01 Chironomid count data
• Chapter 7
  • Appendix 7.01 Pollen procedures
  • Appendix 7.02 Pollen counts for vessel fills
• Chapter 8
  • Appendix 8.01 Small vertebrate bone code sheet
  • Appendix 8.02 Fish count data
  • Appendix 8.03 Bird count data
  • Appendix 8.04 Micromammal count data
  • Appendix 8.05 Herpetofauna count data
• Chapter 9
  • Appendix 9.01 All thin-section sediment blocks and sediment samples
  • Appendix 9.02 Detailed micromorphological descriptions
• Chapter 10
  • Appendix 10.01 Structural wood data
  • Appendix 10.02 Wood group list
  • Appendix 10.03 Woodworking evidence abbreviations
  • Appendix 10.04 Pile-spans and inter-mortise spans of spatially associated beams
  • Appendix 10.05 Broken beams and broken beam-ends by structure
  • Appendix 10.06 Microscopic wood identifications
• Chapter 11
  • Appendix 11.01 Flotation concentrations of bulk ecofacts and artefacts
• Chapter 12
  • Appendix 12.01 Fibres and fabrics glossary
  • Appendix 12.02 Dye identification of textiles
  • Appendix 12.03 Fibres and fabrics catalogue
  • Appendix 12.04 Fibres and fabrics catalogue metadata
• Chapter 14
  • Appendix 14.01 Utilization and use-wear of experimental tools
• Chapter 15
  • Appendix 15.01 Pottery vessel catalogue
• Chapter 16
  • Appendix 16.01 Photographs and X-rays of pile-dwelling metalwork corrosion
  • Appendix 16.02 Metallurgical data
  • Appendix 16.03 Catalogue of metallography photographs
• Chapter 17
  • Appendix 17.01 Glass bead catalogue
• Chapter 18
  • Appendix 18.01 Struck flint catalogue
• Chapter 22
  • Appendix 22.01 Grain-based concretion descriptions
  • Appendix 22.02 Grain-based concretion SEM measurements
  • Appendix 22.03 Flotation plant count data
  • Appendix 22.04 Flotation plant calculations
  • Appendix 22.05 Palaeochannel washover plant data
• Chapter 23
  • Appendix 23.01 Washover plant count data from stem/leaf concentrations
  • Appendix 23.02 Washover plant count data from stem/leaf concentrations
  • Appendix 23.03 Dung pellet measurements
• Chapter 24
  • Appendix 24.01 Washover plant count data from moss samples
• Chapter 25
  • Appendix 25.01 Phytolith extraction laboratory protocols
• Chapter 26
  • Appendix 26.01 Large vertebrate data
  • Appendix 26.02 Biometrical data for large vertebrates
  • Appendix 26.03 Ageing data for large vertebrates
  • Appendix 26.04 Butchery data for large vertebrates
  • Appendix 26.05 Refitted joints for large vertebrates
• Chapter 27
  • Appendix 27.01 Catalogue of human bone
• Chapter 28
  • Appendix 28.01 Laboratory protocols for organic residues in pottery
  • Appendix 28.02 Pottery vessels for organic residue analysiss
  • Appendix 28.03 Surface deposits samples for GC-MS isotopic analyses
  • Appendix 28.04 Molecular composition of organic residue samples
  • Appendix 28.05 Isotopic values (δ¹³C) of the main fatty acids
• Chapter 29
  • Appendix 29.01 Coprolite macrofossil count data
  • Appendix 29.02 Faecal biomarker analysis laboratory protocols
• Chapter 31
  • Appendix 31.01 Stable isotope analysis laboratory protocols
  • Appendix 31.02 Charred seed isotope data
  • Appendix 31.03 Animal bone isotope data