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Report on an Early Bronze Age Site in the South-Eastern Fens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Grahame Clark ,
H. Godwin ,
M. E. Godwin  and
W. A. Macfadyen
W. A. Macfadyen
Affiliation:
Fenland Research Committee
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Extract

Plantation Farm, Shippea Hill, is situated in the south-east corner of the Fenland, some seven miles ENE. of Ely. The vast Fenland plain, formed essentially by the filling-up of a corrugated basin of Jurassic and boulder clays with post-glacial peats, silts, and clays, provides a field for the study of post-glacial changes of environment in relation to man without equal in Britain. As reported in a recent number of the Antiquaries Journal, a Research Committee has been formed at Cambridge under the presidency of Dr. Seward, F.R.S., to organize research in this work and to secure adequate co-operation of specialists in the different sciences. Notwithstanding great advances in the technical equipment of research, remarkably little has been added to our knowledge in this field since the publication of Skertchley's Geology of the Fenland in 1877. We have had, therefore, to begin at the beginning, and this report, which establishes the stratigraphical context of the Early Bronze Age in the deposits of the south-eastern fens, represents one of the first-fruits of our activities. Sir Charles Hiam very kindly allowed us to work on his land, and the Trustees of the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund generously made the excavations and borings possible. We may also take the opportunity here of thanking Mr. Charles Leaf for his part in the initial discovery of the site.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , July 1933 , pp. 266 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1933

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References

page 266 note 1 Antiq. Journ., 1932, p. 453.Google Scholar

page 267 note 1 Geographical Journ., lxxix, 210–12, 351–2.Google Scholar

page 267 note 2 Skertchley, J. B., Geology of the Fenland, 155–6;Google ScholarFowler, Major has brought the evidence up to date in Geographical Journ., lxxxi, p. 149Google Scholar.

page 268 note 1 The charcoal, kindly identified by Mr. J. C. Maby, B.Sc, included: Alnus sp., poorly grown mature wood; Populus sp., young wood; Quercus sp., young branch wood.

page note 2 Since the debris became so much more numerous nearer the actual sand-hill they were only recorded along a width of 3 ft. for section 18–19 of the excavation to avoid overcrowding the diagram.

page 272 note 1 A slightly less degenerate example was found at Camp, Whitehawke, Sussex: S.A.S.C., vol. lxxi, pl. xiv, no. 14Google Scholar.

page 272 note 2 Smith, R. A., Archaeologia, lxxvi, p. 81.Google Scholar

page note 3 Clark, J. G. D., Antiq. Journ. 1932, vol. xii, p. 158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 278 note 1 The Glastonbury Lake Village, ii, pp. 641–72.Google Scholar

page 278 note 2 The Early Iron Age Inhabited Site at All Cannings Cross, pp. 43–50.

page 278 note 3 W.A.M., xlii, pp. 492–3.Google Scholar

page 278 note 4 Ibid. xliii, pp. 90–3.

page 278 note 5 Woodhenge, pp. 61–9.

page 279 note 1 Hughes, T. McKenny, Notes on the Fenland, with a description of the Shippea Hill Man, Cambridge, 1916.Google Scholar

page 279 note 2 Lethbridge, T. C., Fowler, Maj. G., and Sayce, R. U., P.P.S.E.A., vi, pp. 362–4.Google Scholar

page 281 note 1 Godwin, H. and M. E., , ‘Pollen analyses of Fenland Peats at St. German's, near King's Lynn’, Geol. Mag., 1933.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 281 note 2 Corylus, as an undergrowth shrub, is not reckoned in the total tree pollen, but its frequency is expressed as a percentage of this figure.

page 282 note 1 Throughout this note the post-glacial period is referred to in terms of the climatic periods of Blytt and Sernander: i.e. Sub-Arctic, Boreal, Atlantic, Sub-Boreal, and Sub-Atlantic. These periods have been closely correlated, especially in Sweden, with post-glacial forest history, with the Baltic lake periods, with de Geer's geochronology, and with the chief phases of archaeological development. For tables giving these correlations see H. and M. E. Godwin, op. cit.; Woodhead, T. N., ‘History of the Vegetation of the Southern Pennines’, Journal of Ecology, vol xvii, 1929Google Scholar; and Erdtman, G., ‘Studies in the Post-Arctic History of the Forests of North-western Europe. 1. Investigations in the British Isles’, Geol. Fören Förhandl., Bd. 50, 1928. It is generally held that the Boreal period corresponds with the Early Mesolithic and the Sub-Boreal with the Bronze AgeCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 286 note 1 H. and M. E. Godwin, op. cit.

page 286 note 2 Overbeck, F. and Schmitz, H., ‘Zur Geschichte der Moore, Marschen und Wälder Nordwestdeutschlands, I’. Mitteilungen der Provinzialstelle für Naturdenkmalpflege, Hannover, Heft 3, 1931.Google Scholar

page 293 note 1 Clark, J. G. D., The Mesolithic Age in Britain, pp. 16–18, p. 115Google Scholar; Godwin, H. M. E., Antiquity, March 1933Google Scholar.

page 294 note 1 Warren, S. H., The Essex Naturalist, vol. xvi, p. 46 f.Google Scholar

page 294 note 2 In Wisbech Museum there is a second- or third-century olla labelled: ‘Found buried in silt six feet below existing surface in the bed of an old river on Plantation Farm, Burnt Fen, Ely, by Mr. Hugh J. Smith on 1st October, 1906.’ Major G. Fowler, to whom we are indebted for this information, has verified it by interviewing Mr. Smith, who still remembers the find. The pot was discovered in digging the foundations of cottages, placed, as is usual in this part of the country, right on top of the ‘roddon’. The site of the find is shown on fig. 1.

page 294 note 3 This is based on the fact that the boundary frequently respects the ‘roddon’ and ignores, even to the point of crossing, the modern Little Ouse.

page 295 note 1 ProfessorSwinnerton, , Antiq. Journ. 1932.Google Scholar

page 296 note 1 A dug-out canoe, discovered ‘under peat’ in the fen near Chatteris, was found to contain a bronze rapier of Early Bronze Age type. Evans, J., Ancient Bronze Implements, p. 250Google Scholar.