Flag Fen Hosts ‘Crowdsourced’ Bronze Age Archaeology Dig

Flag Fen Hosts ‘Crowdsourced’ Bronze Age Archaeology Dig

A first-of-its-kind “crowdsourced and crowdfunded” archaeological dig at Cambridgeshire’s Flag Fen has finished. It is the site of a Bronze-Age “causeway” of millions of preserved timbers that are rotting away as groundwater recedes from the site.

The not-for-profit Digventures team raised £27,000 from members of the public who then joined in an expert-led dig to excavate parts of the site. Flag Fen’s discoverer Francis Pryor called it “terrifically rewarding”. Excavations of the site shortly after its discovery in 1982 barely scratched the archaeological surface at the site. Little in terms of digging happened since then, simply for lack of funds, and even now archaeologists do not know exactly why the enormous causeway was built.