Daily life in Glastonbury Lake Village during the late Iron Age

At Glastonbury Lake Village in Somerset, people made homes in a wetland landscape. Preserved buildings, tools and household objects reveal the practical work of maintaining shelter, preparing food and making things, although they cannot reconstruct any individual's daily timetable.

A settlement in the Somerset wetlands

The village stood in the River Brue floodplain in Somerset, southwest Britain. Waterlogged deposits preserved wood and other household materials that often disappear elsewhere. Modern dating places its beginnings in 190–160 BCE and its last dated construction in 75–45 BCE, each at 68% probability. These are estimated ranges, and the last building activity does not establish the exact departure date of the final inhabitants. This account therefore focuses on approximately the second and first centuries BCE. See Historic England’s research account.

Keeping a home above the wet ground

The settlement’s foundations combined timber, brushwood, peat, clay, stone and rushes. Roundhouses had central hearths, and their floors were repeatedly renewed, probably partly because the foundations subsided. Maintaining a usable floor was consequently part of the work of living here.

Dating successive structures on one mound suggests an average building life of roughly ten years. This is an estimate from a particular sequence, not a fixed replacement schedule for every household. It points to repeated construction work across generations. See the archaeological chronology study.

Preparing food

The South West Heritage Trust identifies wheat, barley, peas and beans among the foods consumed, alongside fish and animals. Rotary querns provided a way to grind grain, while pots and wooden containers served cooking and storage. These finds make food preparation visible without supplying a complete menu for any particular day.

The Trust suggests that some crops may have reached the settlement through exchange. That remains an interpretation: the presence of grain does not by itself show who cultivated it or the terms on which it arrived. See the Trust’s account of Somerset Iron Age life.

Making cloth and maintaining possessions

Spindle whorls and loom weights are evidence for textile production. Pins, brooches and beads also place clothing and personal appearance within the archaeological picture. Woodworking tools and wooden household equipment reveal another important field of practical skill. See the South West Heritage Trust’s overview.

These objects identify activities more securely than the people performing them. A loom weight cannot establish the age, gender or status of its user, or tell us how a household divided its work.

Moving through a watery landscape

Historic England records dugout boats, lead fishing weights and an eastern causeway with a timber landing stage. Together they make fishing and movement by water important parts of understanding the settlement. Water could connect people to resources as well as constrain where they built.

The same record lists objects such as bone dice, glass beads, rings and tweezers. Everyday life included possessions associated with play and personal care, alongside tools and food preparation. Dice alone cannot tell us which games people played. See the monument record; its older occupation dates should be distinguished from the more recent scientific dating discussed above.

What survives, and what remains uncertain

Early excavations removed much of the settlement’s archaeological deposits. Recent investigations nevertheless found surviving foundations and small areas of floor evidence. The exceptionally preserved material is valuable, but it is not a complete record of every home or every occupation phase. See Historic England’s investigation summary.

The safest reconstruction links activities to identifiable remains and leaves room for uncertainty about household membership, individual beliefs and daily routines.

Explore other places in the Ancient Daily Life Locations collection.