Bronze age settlement in Peterborough

[TinkyPete]

Just seen on BBC news a story about a bronze age settlement in Peterboroough containg 5 houses on stilts with a lot of new artifacts and they are learning about the life in that area at the time and going to have to rewrite some of the earlier thoughts about the Bronze age settlements in the fens.

It has been dubbed Peterborough Pompeii.

Here are a couple of links to stories about it and the web site for the Must Farm site:

Must Farm Site
BBC News story
Telegraph site

 

[Claudiasboris]

Interesting. Thanks for the links!


Claudiasboris

 

[boatman]

Had a talk from one of the excavators a bit back. Fascinating place, especially the logboats. Wonderful cooperation from the owners of the site. What I hope will be accepted is that people back then had as much stuff as they needed and often more than they needed. The austere interiors of modern roundhouse reconstructions will have to be revisited. Waterways too would have been busy with several types of boat in use according what function.

 

[Cromm]

Nice one, cheers

 

[Robson Valley]

Good reads, those links. Thanks. Extraordinary window into the bronze age.
Who ever those particular people were, it appears that they were economically very well off.

 

[Dave]

Do you think this spearhead was used for hunting? Or for tribal combat, or both? What animals would they have used it on I wonder? Surely not deer. I dotn see how you could throw that thing at a deer, before it saw it and fled.

 

[Robson Valley]

In North America, there were two methods for killing bison. The synonym is buffalo.
Bison are typical herbivores in that they are very big, very strong, very aggressive and mostly unpredictable.
You will never walk up to one and stab it in the guts with a sharp rock on the end of a stick.
Or a bronze spear point which might not be nearly as sharp as knapped flint.

1. Stampede a herd of them over a cliff. Hopefully #2 and #3 will belly-flop on #1, a ton at a time and get gored in the process.
Then you walk around and spear the cripples. "Head-Smashed-In" buffalo jump in Alberta is meters deep in bone at the bottom.

2. As was done as Waneskewin in Saskatchewan, build a corral of logs in a bluff of trees. Something not readily visible.
"Push" a few of the bison ever so slowly into the corral then spear them from outside. This should work for deer.

 

[boatman]

I have seen pics of modern "macho" types killing buffalo with spears in America, possibly on a game ranch. Quite how it didn't say and not something I would fancy. However, the bronze spearhead was unlikely to have been for hunting the bow being more useful or even just nets such were used in African jungles as well as snares etc. There was a barbed spearhead found in the same very general area but seemed much too big for hunting anything but a whale. Similar to this in the "Broadward" style. My view is that these might have been boat to boat weapons rather than for hunting.

 

[Janne]

double post...

 

[Janne]

Do you think this spearhead was used for hunting? Or for tribal combat, or both? What animals would they have used it on I wonder? Surely not deer. I dotn see how you could throw that thing at a deer, before it saw it and fled.

If it is attached to a spear that is used with a throwing stick you get the safe range and the killing power, even on thick hided animals like the bison.

It is very beautiful!

 

[Robson Valley]

You have just one spear. Bison are many. Theirs is a group defence.
There is a herd just on the other side of the village from my house.
I've close enough across a fence to "feel" their power.
All the same, I'm very happy to eat them, a side/yr since 2000.

One animal cannot feed the village for the winter. The hunt required the cooperation of many people,
not just for the hunt but in the processing which followed.

Wanuskewin was big with many pit houses and continuous occupation for some 6,000 (documented) years.

Bison jumps are numerous = they must have been effective.
The lines of stone cairns on the runways stretch for miles.

 

[Tengu]

Im not sure of the first spear but the second looks like it was for wild boar?

 

[Robson Valley]

In the area of the Must Farm, what would they have had for big game in the Bronze Age?
I've seen some astounding pictures of an Irish Elk(?), now extinct.

 

[Janne]

Wisent (European Bison), Aurochs, Giant Irish Elk, European Elk (Moose to you on the dark side of Atlantic)
Wolves, Bears.

(I do not think they were eating wolves unless in a survival situation??)

 

[Janne]

They mention that they found bones of Wild Boar and Deer, so if they used that spear point to hunt, it was those animals..

 

[Robson Valley]

Thanks. Lots of things.
Now that you list them, I do recall reading those names somewhere, somewhen.

 

[Janne]

The site is 3000 years old, so quite late Bronze age. Or very yearly Iron age.
No Giant Irish Elk.

 

[Robson Valley]

Come on over. If it's your intention to spear and kill a bison in hand to hand combat, I think it can be arranged.
Not bragging. Not boasting. But I think you could try. The gunners with .338 LaPua will be right behind you.

I'll go so far as to offer to buy a side of the bison. You ain't worth squat on my table.
Kinda puts people at the bottom of the food web in an awful hurry!

 

[Tengu]

No, I employ Neanderthals for that.

Probably no Elk but possibly Aurochs?

 

[boatman]

Aurochs became extinct in Britain in the Bronze Age, perhaps because of an improved spear or loss of habitat.