PETERBOROUGH, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that excavations at the Bronze Age settlement in Cambridgeshire dubbed Must Farm are now complete. A 3,000-year-old village built on a wooden platform over a river channel, the entire settlement collapsed into the water when the piles it stood on were destroyed by fire. The river silt preserved the site and its contents to a remarkable degree. Archaeologists discovered whole meals left in cooking pots, extremely well-preserved textiles, an oak wheel, and a complete wooden spear, among many other artifacts. "On other Bronze Age sites you’d have a row of post holes and you’d be delighted to find one pot shard," says Mark Knight, who led the excavation on behalf of Cambridge University’s Archaeological Unit. "Here we have looked through the window and then walked into the middle of their lives." Analysis and conservation of all the artifacts is expected to take several more years to complete. To read about another Bronze Age site, go to "The Wolf Rites of Winter."
