SUFFOLK, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that a 4,300-year-old wooden trackway was discovered in eastern England during the construction of a wind farm. A 4,800-year-old causewayed enclosure and a later ring ditch were also found nearby. Situated on a slope near a river, the wooden path appears to have led to a level platform, also made of timber, surrounded by the spring water that preserved the wood. “Some of the wood is so well preserved we can clearly see markings made by an apprentice, before a more experienced tradesman has taken over to complete the job,” said Richard Newman of Wardell Armstrong. Archaeologists think the objects recovered during the excavation, such as pieces of metal, pottery, and an aurochs skull, had been dropped into the water from the platform in some form of ritual activity. The massive cattle skull, which was about 2,000 years old when it was submerged, had been modified in a way that suggests it had been affixed to a pole or was part of a headdress. Masses of white pebbles that appear to have been carried to the site were also recovered. In the eleventh century, the site was covered over and leveled off, which buried the springs and helped preserve the timbers. For more on Neolithic England, go to “The Square Inside Avebury’s Circles.”
