The complex Middle Bronze Age field system found at Ormesby St Michael in 2010 is not unique to the area, says Nick Gilmour. It was previously thought the systems had not existed further east than the Cambridgeshire Fens. Gilmour was involved with the original discovery, which dates to about 1500 BCE, and features in The Flying Archaeologist television programme on BBC One.
     Ben Robinson, the programme's presenter, said the area had proven a "real challenge" for archaeologists due to the landscape being flooded to create the broads in the 9th or 10th Century. "Traces of settlement are lost underwater or flattened by the plough, but they don't disappear completely because history leaves a footprint. An ancient ditch or pit that has been filled in long ago will show up as different colours across the fields - crop marks," he said.
     Mr Robinson said hundreds of archaeological sites in the Norfolk Broads could now be re-evaluated. "Maybe there's an extensive pattern - a Bronze Age world out there that we are only just beginning to understand."

Edited from BBC News (19 April 2013)