What is the Sweet Track?

The Sweet Track is a 'post and plank' track-way constructed in the Early Neolithic. It was a little over 2,000 metres (1.35 miles) long, and its course ran across the wetlands between the lower slopes of the Polden Ridge below Shapwick in the South, and the higher ground of Westhay to the North.

Which is Where Exactly?

It's a part of the Somerset Levels – a large area of wetland in Somerset, in the South West of Britain. It's home to a huge range of animal and plant species, and archaeologically significant because the peat beds that are found there provide very favourable preservation conditions for organic material. Over the centuries peat extraction and drainage ditches have revealed a wealth of finds. An excavation in the 1920s revealed the Glastonbury Lake Village – arguably the single most illuminating Iron Age excavation in Britain.

How Old is the Sweet Track?

A little shy of 6,000 years old. Using dendrochronology researchers were able to date the felling of the trees used to build the Track to the winter of 3,806/7 BCE. Parts of the track were 30 years older than this, having been recycled from an earlier construction known as the Post Track.

Modern reconstruction.

Who Built it?

An excellent question. The Early Neolithic population of Britain can be differentiated from the late Mesolithic population in a number of ways (but that's not to say they were different people). Three of the differences is that they began to use new tool technology, domesticated certain animal species, and built monuments in the landscape (mainly Long Barrows at this time). Though they are often referred to as the first farmers, research conducted on the bones found in Long Barrows have suggested that herding was also a way of life for these people, however a mixture of food gathering methods, including hunting, fishing and gathering is likely.

The Discovery.

The Sweet Track as discovered in 1970 by Ray Sweet, a peat worker who was engaged in clearing the ditches at the periphery of E. J. Godwin's peat extraction operation. Correctly assuming Mr. Sweet had made a discovery worthy of further investigation, Godwin's contacted John Coles, an archaeologist they knew had experience in dealing with wetland sites. The following excavation would develop into the Somerset Levels Project, an archaeological exploration of the wetlands that would run for the best part of 20 years.

The Construction of the Sweet Track.

One of the most striking pieces of information revealed by the analysis of the materials used to construct the Sweet Track was that the oak planks from the Southern end of the Track were made from wood that had come from trees around 150 years old when they were felled, while the oak planks from the Northern end were closer to 400 years old. This means that they were harvested from different areas of woodland – almost certainly at different ends of the track. This point may seem trivial at first, but on closer inspection has potentially interesting ramifications. If the age difference between the stocks of wood are an indication of different sources for harvesting the timber, then the distinct usage at each end of the track would indicate that those were the ends of the track that the resources were closest to. Which would, in turn, indicate that the construction of the Sweet Track started in two places, and met in the middle – much like the Channel Tunnel between France and England some 6,000 years later. The logic of this assumption is based entirely on the observation that if such large quantities of wood could be moved from two distant points to a single staring point with ease, then there would be no need from a track to connect the to points of dry land in the first place. Furthermore, a single starting point would mean a single store for resources, which would probably result in a greater mixture of different ages planks being used in the construction process.

Hurdles at Southern end of the Track. Mortelmans interpretation. Modern Reconstruction.

It's not clear whether there were two construction crews laying the track simultaneously and heading for a central point, or whether a single crew built one stretch out to the middle, then went around the swamp and repeated the process from the other side. Any anxiety about making sure the two stretches of track actually met in the middle would have been removed by the presence of the Post Track (the track that had been laid along the same course 30 years previously and was incorporated into the Sweet Track). However this raises the question of how the builders of the Post Track had managed the feat. Perhaps they had marked out the proposed route of the Track with stakes, recording the length of the run and calculating the quantity of materials that would be required to complete the job. Numeracy, it would seem, has a habit of appearing long before literacy.

In all an estimated 600 planks, 3600 pegs and 350 poles were used in the construction of the Sweet Track. The pegs in this instance were actually sturdy split timbers, used to affix the poles or rails to the ground . The poles were selected from the longest straightest saplings the builders could find. That they could find so many of them of a similar size is an indication of long term woodland management. The oak planks – though taken from two sources – also indicate this. Incidentally, some of the 400 year old planks from the Northern end of the Track came from trees estimated to have been over a metre in diameter, perhaps growing as tall as 20 metres before the first branches sprouted – true giants when compared with the oaks of our times.

Though the sheer amount of materials needed for the Track is impressive enough, the work of experimental archaeologists indicates that the actual laying of the Track could have been accomplished quite quickly, with one estimate suggesting it could have been done in a single day. This sounds a little optimistic, however, for the execution of a project of a significant size, which contains a fair number of variables even under perfect conditions. For a rough idea of the exertions involved in simply cutting and sinking a single stake (something akin to a single one of the Track builders 'pegs') there is a video of the Time Team episode that took place at Greylake (also in the Somerset Levels), where some of the team attempt the job with a variety of tools, some of which would have been available to the builders of the Sweet Track. Skip to 31:00 if you're not at leisure to watch the whole episode, however if you have an interest in wetland archaeology it's certainly recommended.

How a Section was Constructed (See Vid.02).

First a wooden pole was laid directly on the surface of the peat. This was pinned in place by a pair of 'pegs' driven in at 45 degree angles to form an 'X', with the pole being secured to the ground by the underside of the crosspiece of the 'X' This was repeated down the length of the pole until there were enough pegs pairs in place to support a plank, which would be placed on the top crosspiece of the 'X' formed by the pegs. Notches were cut into the peg pairs so the plank could be wedged in and minimise wobble. This would have been of prime importance as the planks are only 20 to 30 cm in width.

Animal and Plant Species.

During the excavation a number of animal and plant species were identified. The presence of water skimming spiders, whirligig beetles and water lilies indicate that parts of the Track were built over open stretches of water. By studying the wing cases and hard parts of beetles, researchers were able to identify species which, though now extinct in Britain, survive in parts of the world with more extreme winters and summers than we have in the UK. This suggests that the temperatures of Britain's seasonal cycles were quite different 6,000 years ago.

Grass Snake (Natirx natrix). Water Lily (Nymphaea alba). Whirligig Beetles (Gyratus natator). Common Frog (Rana temporaria). European Beaver (Castor fiber). Raft Spider (Dolomedes fimbriatus).

The End of the Track.

It's thought that the Track didn't have a particularly long existence. After around 10 years reeds had overgrown it and it was occasionally inundated by floodwaters. The sediments brought in by the floodwaters also played a big part in preserving the Track, as did the reeds which formed the peat layers which encapsulated the timbers and planks, creating an anaerobic environment in which the normal decay processes were suspended.

Other Items of Interest. . .

There were numerous finds of broken pots and other aretefacts along the Track – most of which were probably the result of unexpected plank wobbles, though some archaeologists have suggested a portion of them were votive offerings. A team from Bristol University subjected some of the pottery finds to analysis using Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS). This resulted in the identification of fats from bovine (cow) and ovine (sheep/goat) sources, in the form of milk and carcass residue. The team also demonstrated the presence of compounds that only form in temperatures of 30 degrees centigrade, indicating the pot had been used for cooking. This discovery represents the earliest direct evidence for dairy herding. Being associated with the Track – which only had a 10 year lifespan – means that this occurrence has been pinpointed more accurately than would be possible with any other existing method of dating.

The Jadeite Axe Head. Monte Viso - Italy. Monte Viso - green colouration.

Possibly the best known artefact recovered by the excavators was the 'jadeite' axe head, the origins of which lie in the Italian Alps. This discovery offers direct evidence of continental interaction, at whatever remove, in Early Neolithic Somerset. The axe head is shaped a little like an elongated tear-drop, and has been highly polished – a task that would take a considerable amount of time and effort. Though unusual, these jadeite axes are not a rarity – over a hundred have been recovered from sites across Britain and Ireland.

Other items of a more personal nature include a comb, a spoon, pins (for hair or clothing), and a paddle. It is easy to imagine the loss of each of these possessions eliciting a vocalised expression of dismay from their owners, either in the form of a sharp expletive or a resigned sigh. And although it is difficult not to be impressed by the beauty of a polished jadeite axe-head, in many ways it is the more everyday items which allow us a brief moment of empathy with the people of Early Neolithic Britain.