Excavations were undertaken across two Romano-British canals and the Fen Causeway, as part of the Fenland Management Project. Evidence for the construction of the canals and roads, their maintenance and their final phases of abandonment was revealed at all four sites. The environmental data that were recovered are as important and informative as the structural data and greatly increase our understanding of the environment and its effects on these communication routes.
Although some of the sites are spatially disparate, it has been possible to identify similarities as well as differences in construction and events which occurred, underlining the particular problems faced by those trying to settle and utilise an area which was environmentally unstable but at the same time productive. These routeways provided a crucial link between central Britain, via East Anglia, to the North Sea and beyond.