Excavation work for the new Crossrail network may have uncovered evidence of a 3,500-year-old Bronze Age transport route through London.

In what has been described as a "very significant find", archaeologists at the Plumstead site have found wooden stakes which, they say, could have been used in the construction of a transport link.

Archaeologists had been searching for the pathway, which seems to have been built along the same route of the Crossrail link.

The team say the wooden stakes appear to have cuts which they have surmised were made with a Bronze Age axe.


Crossrail archaeologist Jay Carver said: "We know from other sites nearby that this area was probably crisscrossed by a network of pathways.

"Although we haven't identified an actual trackway yet, the timbers are similar to those used to make the trackways and certainly show that people were in the area exploiting the woodland."

It is thought that the wooden track would have given hunters access to the floodplain’s wildlife

Excavation at the Plumstead tunnel entrance got underway last month. Items found at the site have been analysed and it has been confirmed they were made by humans.

An exhibition of artefacts found during digs at Crossrail sites opened last Friday. On display are medieval human bones found at Liverpool Street, a rare amber find and a piece of mammoth jaw bone.

The latest finds are being analysed by the Museum of London Archaeology, but will not be on show.

(IT/GK)