Farmers and potters
People who occupied this increasingly damp fenland landscape
during the earliest part of the neolithic period ('New Stone Age',
4500 to 2000 BC) shared a hunting, fishing and gathering lifestyle
similar to that of the preceeding mesolithic period, or Middle
Stone Age.
Throughout the neolithic period, however, great changes
were to take place. With it came the first evidence of farming -
cultivating crops and rearing herds of animals - and of
pottery-making. 
Peterborough and the Fengate area lend their name to
distinctive types of neolithic pottery, which are found widely
across England.
Excavations in the Fengate area during the 1970s revealed that
in the second millennium BC the fen edge was divided up by a
network of ditches and hedged banks into droves and small fields or
enclosures, among which stood the occasional isolated round
building. The enclosure and drove system, which led down from dry
ground to the ever wetter fen, was maintained throughout the Bronze
Age (2000 to 800 BC), and was probably designed to manage animal
herds - specifically flocks of sheep - grazing on the lush fen
margins.
The growth of permanently settled communities and their herds in
the area put pressure on the natural resources. Large areas of
ancient woodland were gradually cleared for pasture and
cultivation. As long ago as the neolithic period, trees in the
Welland valley were systematically coppiced.