Sweet Track - Builders

Builders

The community that constructed the trackway were Neolithic farmers who had colonised the area around 3900 BC and the evidence suggests that they were, by the time of construction, well organised and settled. Before this human incursion the uplands surrounding the levels were heavily wooded, but local inhabitants began to clear these forests about this time to make way for an economy that was predominately pastoral with small amounts of cultivation. During the winter the flooded areas of the levels would have provided this fishing, hunting, foraging and farming community with abundant fish and wildfowl; in the summer, the drier areas provided rich, open grassland for grazing cattle and sheep, reeds, wood and timber for construction, and abundant wild animals, birds, fruit and seeds. The need to reach the islands in the bog was sufficiently pressing for them to mount the enormous communal activity required for the task of stockpiling the timber and building the trackway, presumably when the waters were at their lowest after a dry period. The work required for the construction of the track demonstrates that they had advanced woodworking skills and suggests some differentiation of occupation among the workers. They also appear to have been managing the surrounding woodland for at least 120 years.