'Significant' finds at Crossrail site

Excavations at Tottenham Court Road [Credit: Crossrail]

 The UK’s largest archaeology programme has uncovered its first Bronze Age find as it continues a search for remains of a 3,500 year old Bronze Age transport pathway along the same route that London’s newest railway, Crossrail, will follow in east London.

The first Bronze Age artefacts for Crossrail come as Europe’s largest construction project opens a month long exhibition in London to showcase its archaeology finds to-date. Among the exhibits are medieval human bones found at Liverpool Street, the UK’s largest rare amber find and a piece of mammoth jaw bone. The items have been found during archaeology digs at Crossrail worksites across London.

The Bronze Age finds include two wooden stakes that have been cut by early London hunters with an axe, and which may have been used to build a timber pathway, and a hammer stone used as a tool. The discovery has been made during excavations at the Plumstead tunnel entrance in east London where two tunnel boring machines will begin constructing Crossrail’s Thames Tunnels early next year. Excavations of the site are continuing this week.

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