Must Farm Timber Platform: Post Excavation Assessment and Updated Project Design

Abstract

The Cambridge Archaeological Unit undertook a 53 week archaeological excavation of a Late Bronze Age pile-dwelling settlement at Must Farm Quarry, Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire (TL 2367 9682) between June 2015 and August 2016. Historic England and Forterra Building Products Ltd funded the excavation. The investigations revealed a Late Bronze Age settlement of stilted wooden structures built over a freshwater palaeochannel — the Must Farm pile-dwellings. Its early destruction by catastrophic fire, preserving both extensive structural remains and a diverse assemblage of associated organic and inorganic material culture, provides an unprecedented opportunity to explore the ways people occupied and acted upon their world nearly 3000 years ago.This post-excavation assessment presents a detailed description and evaluation of the stratigraphic, structural, material and environmental remains of Zone A. i.e. of Structure 1 (the best preserved structure) and its immediate environs (incorporating a stretch of the surrounding palisade). The report presents the types of archaeological material encountered in relation to this part of the pile dwelling settlement, analysing the distribution of waterlogged wood, pottery, metalwork, animal bone, wooden artefacts, textiles, beads, worked stone, burnt clay and human bone. . The assessments of many microscopic environmental remains are, however, based on subsamples across the whole excavation area due to their intangibility and thus the unknowable biases of focusing solely on Zone A. The contextual setting of the pile-dwelling settlement is considered in relation to the deposit history of palaeochannel as well as an earlier Middle Bronze Age timber causeway that spanned the same stretch of channel. The report comprises four parts: Volume 1. Post-excavation Assessment, Volume 2. Specialists’ Reports, Volume 3. Updated Project Design and Volume 4. Figures.