Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T10:32:30.552Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Meare Heath Trackway: excavation of a Bronze Age structure in the Somerset Levels

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

J. M. Coles ,
B. J. Orme ,
S. C. Beckett ,
M. A. Girling  and
R. A. Morgan
J. M. Coles
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge
B. J. Orme
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Exeter
S. C. Beckett
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Liverpool Polytechnic
M. A. Girling
Affiliation:
Ancient Monuments Laboratory, 23 Savile Row, London W1
R. A. Morgan
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The prehistoric structure described in this paper is only one of a large series of wooden roads and trackways that run into and across the Somerset Levels. The Levels themselves consist of a number of wide expanses of moorland separated by ‘islands’ of rock and sand, the whole covering a region in Somerset of about 200 square miles. In the northern part of the Levels, the peats of the valley of the River Brue have for long been subjected to hand-cutting and machine-cutting by a number of individuals and peat-companies. Through their activities, many prehistoric discoveries have been made and these have been reported at intervals in these Proceedings and elsewhere. In 1973, the Somerset Levels Project was formed to organize and conduct fieldwork and excavations in the Levels, and, through co-operation with both the Department of the Environment and the many peat interests in the Levels, the Project has been able to undertake many more investigations of prehistoric remains than had previously been possible; about 15 reports relating to recent works have been published, and those relevant to the present paper are listed in the References.

The wooden trackway described here has been known to exist for almost 90 years, but so far as we are aware it has never before been fully examined, nor has it had the benefit of specialist studies dealing with dendrochronology and with fossil coleoptera associated with the trackway. These, allied to extensive wood identifications and pollen analyses, allow a more closely defined description and interpretation of the trackway which appear to us to alter the original concepts as published previously.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 42 , December 1976 , pp. 293 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Balfour-Browne, W. A. F., 1958. British Water Beetles, 111 (Ray Society, London).Google Scholar
Beckett, S. C. and Hibbert, F. A., 1976. ‘An absolute pollen diagram from the Abbot's Way’, Somerset Levels Papers, 2, 24–7.Google Scholar
Bulleid, A., 1933. ‘Ancient trackway in Meare Heath, Somerset’, Som. Arch, and Nat. Hist. Soc., 79, 19–29.Google Scholar
Clapham, A. R. and Godwin, H., 1948. ‘Studies of the postglacial history of British vegetation: VIII, Swamping surfaces in peats of the Somerset Levels; IX, Prehistoric trackways in the Somerset Levels’, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., B.233, 233–73.Google Scholar
Clark, J. G. D., 1963. ‘Neolithic bows from Somerset, England, and the prehistory of archery in north-west Europe’, PPS, 29, 50–98.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M. and Hibbert, F. A., 1968. ‘A Neolithic wooden mallet from The Somerset Levels’, Antiquity, 46, 52–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coles, J. M., Orme, B. J. and Hibbert, F. A., 1975. ‘The Eclipse Track’, Somerset Levels Papers, 1, 20–8.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M., Orme, B. J., Hibbert, F. A. and Jones, R. A., 1975a. ‘Withy Bed Copse’, Somerset Levels Papers, 1, 29–40.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M., Orme, B. J., Hibbert, F. A. and Jones, R. A., 1975b. ‘Tinney's Ground 1974’, Somerset Levels Papers, x, 43–53.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M. and Orme, B. J., 1976. ‘The Sweet Track, Railway Site’, Somerset Levels Papers, 2, 34–65.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M. and Orme, B. J., 1976. ‘The Abbot's Way’, Somerset Levels Papers, 2, 7–20.Google Scholar
Girling, M. A., 1976. ‘Fossil Coleoptera from the Somerset Levels: the Abbot's Way’, Somerset Levels Papers, 2, 28–33.Google Scholar
Godwin, H., 1960. ‘Prehistoric wooden trackways of The Somerset Levels’, PPS, 26, 1–36.Google Scholar
Hibbert, F. A. and Jones, R. A., 1975. ‘Vegetational history of the Somerset Levels’, Somerset Levels Papers, 1, 8–10.Google Scholar
Morgan, R. A., 1976. ‘Tree-ring studies in the Somerset Levels: The Sweet Track,’ Somerset Levels Papers, 2, 66–77.Google Scholar