Meare is the name given to two well-preserved Iron Age villages (Meare Village East and Meare Village West, located north of Meare, Somerset, on the south bank of the River Brue in the Somerset Levels. Meare's villages, built during the 3rd century BC, were discovered in 1895, when a farmer found artifacts while out digging post holes. Excavations identified the villages as lake dwellings, settlements built on small bog humps of dried peat, which were later flooded and sealed, preserving the sediments.
Iron Age objects recovered from Meare and nearby include leather horse bridles and trappings, wooden foundation posts, basketry, leather scabbards, in addition to stone, glass, worked bone and antler, metal objects and human remains; all in an excellent state of preservation, making Meare among the best-preserved site of its age in Europe.
Excavations at Meare were conducted in the 1930s by Arthur Bulleid, and then later by Harold St. George Gray, Michael Avery, and, in the 1980s, by the Somerset Levels Project.
Meare Trouble
Meare is best known to archaeologists because of the preservation and, it must be said, problems associated with being located in a bog. Recent drainage, enhanced tree growth and associated dewatering have negatively affected Meare villages and the nearby Sweet Track as well.
The Other Meare
Meare is probably best known to the rest of the world as the location of the Abbey of Glastonbury, where in the 12th century AD, the monks reported finding the skeletal remains of "Arthur" and "Guinevere". The connections to or indeed the existence of any person such as King Arthur are archaeologically tenuous, but the stuff of legends, and who are we to argue with legends?
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Chapman HP, and Van de Noort R. 2001. High-Resolution Wetland Prospection, using GPS and GIS: Landscape Studies at Sutton Common (South Yorkshire), and Meare Village East (Somerset). Journal of Archaeological Science 28(4):365-375.
Minnitt S. 2000. The iron-age wetlands of central Somerset. In: Webster CJ, editor. Somerset Archaeology: Papers to mark 150 years of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society. Somerset: Somerset Council. p 73-78. Free download
Rippon S. 2005. Water and wetlands in medieval estate management: Glastonbury Abbey, Meare and the Somerset Levels in South West England. In: Klapste J, editor. Water Management in the Medieval Rural Economy. Prague: Institute of Archaeology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. p 93-112.
Rippon S. 2004. Making the Most of a Bad Situation? Glastonbury Abbey, Meare, and the Medieval Exploitation of Wetland Resources in the Somerset Levels. Medieval Archaeology 48:91-130.
