History : Timeline

Date Before Present = BP	Monuments and Finds	Monuments and Landscape	Natural Environment Fauna and Flora
Prehistoric, prior to the last Ice Age 500,000 BP to 25,000 BP	Irish Elk (Giant Deer) antler and vertebra.	Various landscapes at different times but the Giant Deer lived in open woodland.	Irish Elk (Giant Deer).
Prehistoric 12,000 BP Neolithic 6,000 BP	Bog oaks Flint arrow heads, scrapers, polished greenstone axeheads, trackways.	Post-glacial open landscape (tundra) followed by grasses and bushes and after several thousand years woodland and forest. Mixed landscape, forests, fens and open grasslands.	Oaks, yew, beech, pines and hazel.
Bronze Age 4,000 BP	Burials, round barrows, flint tools, a few settlement sites with pits and post holes. Trackways, field systems, ditched enclosures.	First arable farming. Mixed landscape, decreasing woodland cover, increasing wet peat fenlands, open pasture.	Red Deer. Cereal grasses.
Iron Age 2,700 BP	Pottery scatters, quern stones, saltern sites towards the east, farmsteads and small villages.	Increasingly open, managed landscape, evidence of tidal influence, peat fenland.	Red Deer. Cereal grasses.
Roman 2,000-1,600 BP	Coins, pottery scatters, farmsteads, saltern sites, spring-side settlements, roads and tracks, canals.	Ordered landscape with some wild undeveloped areas such as wet fenland.	Red Deer. Cereal grasses.
Saxon 1,600-1,000 BP	Pottery scatters, setlement sites, cemeteries, late Saxon churches.	Ordered landscape with some wild undeveloped areas including increasing areas of wet fenland. Cultivated fields and late Saxon villages.	Wild Boar. Beaver. Otter.
Medieval 1,000-500 BP	Pottery Kilns, churches, earthwork remains of settlement, rubbish pits, monastic establishments, watermills and windmills, fisheries, roads.	Ordered and fully utilised landscape - extensive areas of wet fenland. Villages with cultivated open fields containing ridge and furrow also meadows.	Crane. Bittern. Wild Salmon. Rabbits. Reeds. Land rents paid in barrels of eels.
Last 500 years BP	Manor Houses, duck decoys, farms, barns, dovecotes, shops, public houses, cottages, stables, schools, almshouses, railways, pillboxes, airfields.	Increasing drainage of the Fens from the seventeenth. century leading to a fully drained landscape - widespread cultivation oof remaining grasslands. Increased quarrying for sand and gravel. Extensive network of tarmac roads. High production arable farming landscape. 75% loss of peatland soils.	Loss of many wetland plants and animals. 100,000s of wildfowl taken for the urban markets. Arable crops dominate the flora. Climate change - high atmospheric carbon.