1 of 6 | House stilts and roof timbers found preserved in the ancient river bed. Photo by Cambridge University
CAMBRIDGESHIRE, England, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Archaeologists are hard at work at Must Farm in East Anglia, excavating what they say are the best-preserved Bronze Age dwellings ever discovered in Britain.
Dozens of prehistoric houses built on stilts, collapsed by a fire, have been discovered in the mud of a countryside quarry -- the site of an ancient riverbed. The neatly preserved findings promise to offer new insights into domestic life as it was 3,000 years ago at the end of the Bronze Age in Britain.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge are calling it Britain's "Pompeii," the famed Neapolitan houses preserved by volcanic ash.
The dig site encompasses nearly 12,000 square feet of the Cambridgeshire farm, now a working clay quarry. Among the remains archaeologists have found everything from lime tree bark to textiles, exotic beads to glass jars filled with food.
"Must Farm is the first large-scale investigation of the deeply buried sediments of the fens and we uncover the perfectly preserved remains of prehistoric settlement," Mark Knight, a Cambridge archaeologist and leader of the excavation, said in a press release. "Everything suggests the site is not a one-off but in fact presents a template of an undiscovered community that thrived 3,000 years ago 'beneath' Britain's largest wetland."
Lowercase "fens" refers to a localized area of wetlands. When capitalized -- as "The Fens" or "Fenland" -- it refers to a low-lying, water-logged region of East England.
The region is no stranger to archaeological revelations. Excavations in Fenland have uncovered a variety of Bronze Age metalwork. But the latest discovery puts Must Farm on par with the most impressive of Britain's prehistoric wetland sites.
"Usually at a Later Bronze Age period site you get pits, post-holes and maybe one or two really exciting metal finds," said David Gibson, archaeological manager of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit. "Convincing people that such places were once thriving settlements takes some imagination."
"But this time so much more has been preserved -- we can actually see everyday life during the Bronze Age in the round," Gibson added. "It's prehistoric archaeology in 3-D with an unsurpassed finds assemblage both in terms of range and quantity."
The site is several years in the making, and digs will continue for several more months. Once complete, artifacts will be transported to Cambridge for in-depth analysis. Eventually, remains will be put on display at the Peterborough Museum.
