Bronze Age find

[M. Demetrius]

I guess this is the right place to put this link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/d...gy-fenland

Pretty amazing stuff, and it makes me wonder how much more is buried around in similar strata, that we don't see anywhere from surface features.

[Caballo]

Amazing- thanks!

[Titus Marius Secundus]

Wow hock:

that's pretty cool, thanks Demetrius for posting!

[john roberts]

Fabulous! But how did this stuff end up there? Was it a burial, a disaster? The spoon-in-the-stew find indicates something sudden, like the eruption of Vesuvius.

[Epictetus]

The article speculates that some of it could have been offerings. Could the spoon-in-the-stew have been something similar? I don't recall ever reading about eating instruments being used like this, though, but I suppose it could make sense. Food was often used as an offering in many cultures. The spoon, though, would mean that the people had some anthropomorphism concept of the gods, which would indeed be an interesting thought. Another possibility would be an offering to ancestors.

[Cheyenne]

I've dug in the Cambridge Fens and it is indeed an amazing place for the preservation of Bronze Age deposits.

Some of the pallisaded settlements which were uncovered a few years after Flag Fen revealed animal footprints preserved in the solidified mud - they turned out to be Bronze Age cattle enclosures... truly excellent stuff. I'd love to get some temp work on that site with CAU

I await some of the preliminary reports from them

[Paul Elliott]

I do a bit of re-enactment for this period, on and off. So any finds are great news, especially textiles!!!

[Cunicula]

It sounds like some of this might refer to the amazing burnt house at Must Farm http://www.prehistoricsociety.org/files/past063.pdf
(Unless there's two sites in Cambridgeshire with a spoon in the stew!)