Flag Fen, Peterborough

The site at Flag Fen lies at the center of a once-wet Fenland bay, immediately east of Peterborough. In the Bronze Age a huge alignment of posts crossed a kilometer of wetland to link the two sides of one of the most important and intensively studied prehistoric landscapes in Britain. This volume discusses work carried out at Flag Fen since the completion, in 1995, of the comprehensive Flag Fen Basin Report (EH Archaeology Report, 2001). That monograph published results from the excavations of the Bronze Age platform and the western (Fengate) landfall of the post alignment. Picking up where the last publication left off, this volume looks at the risk to the waterlogged, in-situ prehistoric remains on the site in the context of ongoing de-watering of the Fengate area. In addition it includes detailed investigations of the post alignment's previously unpublished eastern (Northey Island) landfall. New research including oxygen isotope analyses of animal teeth provides interesting, and at times surprising, insights into the economy and the complex role played by domestic animals. The volume also includes a reassessment of the role that large timbers played at Flag Fen, and elsewhere in Bronze Age Britain.