Waterlands: Prehistoric Life at Bar Pasture, Pode Hole Quarry,
Peterborough recounts a decade-long archaeological investigation at Bar
Pasture Farm, Pode Hole Quarry, Peterborough, and represents one of the
most significant landscape excavations carried out in recent years. The
55-hectare archaeological dig was the scene of human activity on the
fenland edge from the Mesolithic through to the Late Iron Age, although
the majority of the evidence covered the period from the Early Neolithic
through to the Middle Bronze Age. Throughout prehistory, the fen edge
has represented a landscape at the margins of human habitation and
exploitation. During the Early Neolithic, a substantial waterhole
complex with signs of later visitation was established on the fen edge.
Traces of several Beaker buildings provided elusive evidence of slightly
later activity further inland, whilst during the Early Bronze Age
proper, a number of impressive burial mounds were constructed within a
dedicated 'Barrow Field'. One barrow contained the nationally
significant remains of an infant burial on a birch bark mat with
associated grave goods. The Middle Bronze Age saw the entire
re-organisation of the surrounding landscape by the creation of an
extensive, rectilinear field system, served by multiple droveways and
associated with a classic enclosed farmstead. The placement of later
Middle Bronze Age cremation burials within the remains of earlier burial
monuments bears witness to the intimate connection of this small
community to their ancestors' sacred landscape. By the 4th century BC,
settlement was all but abandoned due to marine inundations, although one
slightly elevated part of the landscape formed an area of refuge for an
Iron Age smith and his family, who created an isolated and significant
smithy.
