1941: On this day, 814 20-year-old city girls responded to their call-up papers - although some forgot their registration card! Many of the girls had come with their mothers, while others had their boyfriends for company. Some are described as arriving 'with an army escort on either side'. Quite a few perambulators are also recorded as being parked outside the building. (Gray, David, Peterborough at War 1939-1945, David Gray, 2011)
Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.
The landscape in the area north-east of Peterborough, incorporating Borough Fen, Milking Nook and Newborough would have looked very different in the late-Neolithic and Bronze Age to the present agricultural scene. Archaeological investigations have discovered that the landscape contained several bowl barrows and ring ditches, now buried below the surface.
Bowl barrows were part of funeral rituals and contained single or multiple burials. They are common in lowland areas, although Borough Fen is remarkable for the number clustered along the prehistoric fen edge. The majority are approximately 5m in diameter, but the scheduling area around them is much more extensive.
During the later Bronze Age most of the farms and settlements in this area were on the drier, flood-free margins of the wetlands, though a few were constructed over the water on wooden piles. One of these small settlements (of some ten houses) has been found at Must Farm on the western edge of Whittlesey. Around 800 BC the houses caught fire very soon after they were built (whether the fires were accidental or deliberate is still under debate) and the entire platform collapsed into the waters below. Because of the fire and the waterlogged conditions the houses collapsed into, Must Farm is a beautifully preserved archaeological site; it has been described as the Bronze Age Pompeii as the fantastic amount of finds (including wood, pots, food, jewellery and even fabric) have revealed a great deal about Bronze Age life and trade.
Near to Must Farm, along the channel the River Nene took in antiquity, archaeologists discovered nine intact Bronze Age log boats, all fashioned from hollowed-out tree trunks, which were sunk over a period of 600 years. These boats are currently undergoing conservation at Flag Fen, where they are on display.
Flag Fen is a superbly preserved Bronze Age structure. It consisted of a causeway whose posts were arranged in five rows running in a straight line from Fengate to Northey a distance of a kilometre. In the middle of this causeway was a huge wooden platform.
The construction of this causeway started in 1300 BC (at a time when Tutankhamen ruled Egypt) and continued for 400 years.
The structure was probably a boundary as well as a causeway and may also have formed a defensive palisade to protect the richly resourced Flag Fen Basin. It is, however, likely that it was also used as a shrine or temple, as hundreds of offerings of high status and valuable items, bronze tools, weapons and jewellery, were offered to the waters between the great posts. This continued long after the causeway itself had gone out of use.
By 1500 BC the lower Nene Valley and Fen-edge regions of Peterborough had become one of the most prosperous landscapes in prehistoric Britain, fertile and rich in resources.The local population was well into the thousands and there were tens of thousands of cattle and sheep grazing the elaborately arranged field systems around the Fen margins. Most of the farms and settlements were on the drier, flood-free margins of the wetlands, but a few were constructed over the water on wooden piles, such as the one at Must Farm.
During the Neolithic the local population had grown from hundreds to perhaps a few thousand people. This process gathered pace in the Bronze Age, which is named after the arrival of metal-workers in Britain, around 2500 BC. As the population grew it became necessary to divide-up the landscape into field systems; some of the earliest fields in England are found in Peterborough.
Meanwhile North Sea levels were steadily rising and the nearby floodplain of the River Nene became permanent Fen. Animals were grazed on its lush summer pastures. Major sites of this time have been found at Fengate, Must Farm and Bradley Fen.
With the arrival in Britain of skilled metal-workers from mainland Europe around 2500 BC, metal technology began. These people are called the Beaker People, the name arising from their particular style of pottery.
The first metal used was copper, but this was soon replaced by the harder bronze (an alloy of 90% copper with 10% tin), for which the time period, the Bronze Age, is named.
Smiths working in the Peterborough area, mostly in the east, produced hundreds of swords, daggers, spearheads, axes, pins, ornaments and jewellery, such as rings.
The production of metal led to greater control of fire and with it, improved, harder pottery.
Tutankhamun was king of Egypt between 1336 BC and 1327 BC during the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom of Egyptian history, he became Pharaoh at the age of 9 or 10; he was the last of his royal family to rule.
He was born around 1345 BC, the son of the heretic king Akhenaten and his sister-wife. Akhenaten turned Egypt away from the worship of Amun Ra and towards the worship of the sun god Aten. Tutankhamun was originally called Tutankhaten meaning 'living image of Aten', but changed it to Tutankhamun, ‘living image of Amun’ after his father’s death and the restoration of the old religion.
Tutankhamun had several physical problems, including a deformity of his left foot which meant he needed a cane to walk (several of which were found in his tomb), a cleft palate and scoliosis. He also suffered from malaria. He married his half-sister Ankhesenamun who had two miscarriages during her marriage to the pharaoh.
He died around the age of eighteen, his cause of death is still controversial. He had a left compound leg fracture at the time of his death, possibly from a fall, so his death may have been a result of a fall, his general poor health and malaria.
Tutankhamun’s fame is due to the discovery of his virtually intact tomb in 1922 by Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings, on an expedition funded by Lord Carnarvon. The treasures found in the tomb, though based in the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo have toured the world. They are due to visit London between November 2019 and May 2020.
Images:
Howard Carter (Public Domain)
King Tutankhamun's tomb opened (Public Domain)
The village of Newark to the east of Peterborough, has sadly been lost to the march of progress. Although the name Newark still exists, the site of the village was largely lost under the Frank Perkins Parkway. The main road running roughly north to south through the village still exists as Eye Road in Welland.
What is most fascinating about this road is that it was built upon Car Dyke, the Roman canal dating to the early first century. Several Roman finds have been discovered in the area in gardens, public space and Newark Hill School playing fields.
However, further finds have pushed the date that people were living in Newark back even further to the Bronze Age and Neolithic (New Stone Age). Several Bronze Age finds have been discovered in the area as well as Neolithic. This suggests that although the original village of Newark has vanished, people have been occupying the area for at least 6,000 years.
Parnwell is one of the newer areas of Peterborough, built beside the old village of Newark and separated from the rest of the city by the Frank Perkins Parkway. The recent addition of industrial and commercial buildings to the east of Parnwell way is revealing that Parnwell has a long past.
Evidence has been found of people living and travelling through the Parnwell area since the Mesolithic period, around 8-10,000 years ago, when Britain was still connected to mainline Europe. Archaeological remains have been found between Parnwell Way and Eyebury Road that suggest people lived in and used the area during Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman and Medieval times; evidence for other time periods hasn't been found... yet. Evidence has included ditches belonging to field systems, ring ditches, a round house, pots, urns, cremations, arrow heads, an axe head and animal remains. A Roman site, where the Tesco Distribution Centre is at present, contained evidence of corn drying, a quern stone, a brooch and tegula (roof tile), as well as human and animal remains suggesting that people were living there in the Roman period.
The two archaeological digs at Must Farm near Whittlesey revealed a hidden landscape from the Iron and Bronze Ages in the boggy marshlands. Key to the landscape was the siting of the River Nene which wound a wiggly route through the flatlands.
In the earlier dig from 2012 the archaeologists examined the old river route and discovered plenty of interesting artefacts. Fish traps and weirs appeared almost as fresh as the day they had been placed in the river, but what was most remarkable were the logboats discovered, each carved from individual trees.
In total, eight boats were discovered, all were numbered and named by the archaeologists. One of the boats was dated to the Iron Age but the other seven were dated to the Bronze Age when the most activity occurred at Must Farm and Flag Fen. The oldest boats discovered were boats 3 and 8, which have been dated to 1300-1250 BC in the Middle Bronze Age, making them over 3,200 years old. Boat 3 is notable for the transom space at the stern (rear) of the boat. A transom board would have slotted into the grove to secure the back of the boat in the same way one might secure a ferry. At the bow (front) is a beautifully carved handle that might have been used to pull the boat along.
The other five Bronze Age logboats dated from the late Bronze Age range from boat 2 dated to around 1150 BC (3150 years old) to boat 4 at 1000-800 BC (2800-3000 years old). Boat 4 was the longest boat discovered at 8.42m long, which is incredible given that it was carved from one tree.
It is not certain how these boats were propelled. One suggestion is that they were punted with long poles as is still the tradition in Cambridge. The flat-bottomed boats would have moved well across both deep and shallow water, through vegetation and along the stretches of rivers and streams too.
References
http://www.mustfarm.com/bronze-age-river/discoveries
Must Farm near Whittlesey was home to Bronze Age people. They lived in roundhouses made of mud, wood and reeds which sat on stilts above a river.
They ate a very good diet with food from the land and the water. When archaeologists dug the area they found lots of different foods which included a bowl of nettle stew. They ate lots of meat including lamb, beef, venison (deer) and wild boar, as well as fish from the river, eels, birds and possibly mussels.
They also ate dairy foods like butter, lots of cereals like barley, flax and emmer wheat which could be ground into flour using quern stones. It really is difficult to discover what vegetables or plants people were eating 3,000 years ago (unless they are found in a bowl!) but specialists are working hard to find out exactly what the people of Must Farm ate to bring the Bronze Age back to life.
By 1500 BC the lower Nene Valley and Fen-edge regions of Peterborough ha…
During the Neolithic the local population had grown from hundreds to per…
With the arrival in Britain of skilled metal-workers from mainland Europ…
Parnwell is one of the newer areas of Peterborough, built beside the old…
Must Farm near Whittlesey was home to Bronze Age people. They lived in r…