Human-environment relations are a traditional research strength of wetland archaeology. Well-preserved environmental remains and rich archaeological records can tell us much about past people’s interaction with often dynamic wetland environments. Yet within wetland archaeology, this interaction is often only considered in economic terms, with a focus on exploitative relations between people and their landscape (cf. van de Noort and O’Sullivan 2006). This is one of the main issues that prevents wetland archaeology from being better integrated in mainstream archaeology. Therefore, this paper aims to examine other, more social aspects and outcomes of human-environment interactions within later prehistoric wetlands (c. 4000 BC – AD 40). Presenting the preliminary results of a short pilot study in the East Anglian Fens, past perceptions of wetland landscapes, ‘wetlander’ identities and interactions between people living in wetlands and those in drier areas will be discussed.
In historical periods, written sources often oppose wetland environments and their inhabitants, which are described as wild, uncivilised and unpredictable, with dry, cultivated and ‘civilised’ landscapes and people. Yet before large scale drainage and peat extraction, wetlands of various kinds made up large parts of the north-western European landscape and played an important role in many people’s lives. Wetland archaeology has identified a great variety of prehistoric wetland activities, including the extraction of resources, ritual practices, animal husbandry and even settlement. This wide range of interactions with wetlands suggests people had a different understanding of these landscapes, where modern dichotomies between nature and culture, wild and domesticated, and perhaps even wet(lander) and dry(lander) did not exist.
To test this assumption further, a range of archaeological material will be compared across various sites in and around the Fens. This allows for an assessment of past perspectives of various (wetland) environments and the extent to which different ‘wetland lifestyles’ may have affected social identities and interactions between wet and drylanders. Thus, prehistoric wetland sites such as the newly discovered late Bronze Age settlement of Must Farm may be placed in a wider socio-cultural and landscape context.

Location

Norcroft Centre, University of Bradford