Bronze Age

Topic description and stories

Research reveals ‘cosy domesticity’ of prehistoric stilt-house dwellers in England’s ancient marshland

20 Mar 2024

Detailed reports on thousands of artefacts pulled from “Britain’s Pompeii” reveals the surprisingly sophisticated domestic lives of Bronze Age Fen...

Microscopic egg of a fish tapeworm and Must Farm excavation site

Ancient faeces reveal how ‘marsh diet’ left Bronze Age Fen folk infected with parasites

16 Aug 2019

Coprolites from the Must Farm archaeological excavation in East Anglia shows the prehistoric inhabitants were infected by parasitic worms that can be...

Excavations underway on Dhaskalio, off Keros.

Unusually sophisticated prehistoric monuments and technology revealed in the heart of the Aegean

18 Jan 2018

New excavations on the remote island of Keros reveal monumental architecture and technological sophistication at the dawn of the Cycladic Bronze Age...

Zebu cattle pulling a wagon beside a pond at the Indus Civilisation site of Rakhigarhi in northwest India

Rice farming in India much older than thought, used as 'summer crop' by Indus civilisation

21 Nov 2016

Thought to have arrived from China in 2000 BC, latest research shows domesticated rice agriculture in India and Pakistan existed centuries earlier...

Latest archaeological finds at Must Farm provide a vivid picture of everyday life in the Bronze Age

14 Jul 2016

Excavation of a site in the Cambridgeshire fens reveals a Bronze Age settlement with connections far beyond its watery location. Over the past ten...

Excavation of Bronze Age Wheel at Must Farm one metre in diameter, with hub clearly visible.

Most complete Bronze Age wheel to date found at Must Farm near Peterborough

19 Feb 2016

The largest and best-preserved Bronze Age wheel in Britain has been uncovered at Must Farm, a site described as Peterborough’s Pompeii. The wheel...

Archaeologists at Must Farm have uncovered the charred wooden roof structure of a 3,000 year old round house., Credit: Cambridge Archaeological Unit

Bronze Age stilt houses unearthed in East Anglian Fens

12 Jan 2016

Large circular wooden houses built on stilts collapsed in a dramatic fire 3,000 years ago and plunged into a river, preserving their contents in...

Left: Skull of a Yamnaya, the people who migrated to Central Asia in early Bronze Age and developed the Afanasievo culture. The Afanasievo are one of the Bronze Age groups carrying Y. pestis. Right: Scanning Electron Micrograph Of A Flea

Plague in humans ‘twice as old’ but didn’t begin as flea-borne, ancient DNA reveals

22 Oct 2015

New research dates plague back to the early Bronze Age, showing it had been endemic in humans across Eurasia for millennia prior to the first...

Decline of Bronze Age ‘megacities’ linked to climate change

27 Feb 2014

Climate change may have contributed to the decline of a city-dwelling civilisation in Pakistan and India 4,100 years ago, according to new research.

One of six Bronze Age boats found during the excavation at Must Farm Quarry.

The Bronze Age – now in 3D

09 Dec 2011

One of the most important later Bronze Age sites ever discovered in Britain is being excavated near Peterborough, providing a richly detailed, “3D”...

Island of broken figurines

10 Jun 2011

Why were Bronze Age figurines smashed, transported and buried in shallow pits on the Aegean island of Keros? New research sheds light on a 4,500-year...