A Neolithic trackway once ran across what archaeologists have termed the "Flag Fen Basin", from a dry-land area known as Fengate[4] to a natural clay island called Northey.

[5] The causeway and centre platform were formed by driving 'thousands of posts with long pencil-like tips' through the 'accumulating peaty muds' and into the firmer ground below.

Many items denoting 'rank and prestige' were deposited in the water surrounding Flag Fen,[7] including swords, spearheads, 'gold earrings, tiny pins and brooches'.

[5] Archaeologist Francis Pryor, who discovered the site in 1982, suggests that 'settlers often vied for social status by showing they could afford to discard valuable possessions'.

[1] The anaerobic conditions generated by silt deposits from the fens protected the wooden posts and rafters of the collapsed structures from rotting away under the influence of air and bacteria.

[11][12] In the 10th century BC the ground level was much lower than today, increasing around 1 mm (0.039 inches) per year as autumnal debris was added to the surface of the fens.

[4] In 1992 Pryor told National Geographic that he "stumbled – literally – upon' Flag Fen 'when he tripped on a piece of wood lying in the bottom of a drainage ditch.

"[6] Excavation commenced in the Summer of 1984 and by 1990 had revealed vertical and horizontal timbers, animal bones, a bronze dagger and other metal items and fragments, flint implements and 400 potsherds.

130 members of public received hands-on training in archaeological techniques on site and visitor numbers increased by 29% from the previous year.

Francis Pryor was supportive of the initiative and wrote afterwards: "happily, it was an experiment that worked: the participants had a good time, and the archaeology was professionally excavated, to a very high standard.

Entitled Flag Fen: Life and Death of a Prehistoric Landscape, it is what he has described as a "major revision" of his 1991 work, for instance repudiating his earlier "lake village" concept.

[17] Flag Fen is also home to an abundance of wildlife owing to the variety of habitats on the site, which includes extensive grassland, traditionally managed hedgerows and woodland and a freshwater mere and dyke.

On 2 August 2014, a BioBlitz organised by Vivacity found 190 species, including 53 lichens and the endangered European water vole and barn owl.