Secrets of the Dorset marsh: Excavating Bronze Age remains and one of Britain’s oldest wooden tools

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 417

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After the end of the last Ice Age, the landscape around what today is Poole Harbour in Dorset underwent a series of gradual but dramatic transformations. Birch woodland was slowly replaced first by pine and then broadleaf trees, within which areas of peat- and reed- marsh began to grow. The low sandy islands and ridges of glacial gravels in this watery environment offered oases of dry land that soon attracted the attention of prehistoric communities living nearby. During the Bronze Age, the wetland was visited and revisited over many generations, with groups travelling from nearby settlements to harvest reeds and rushes, dig peat, and turn out cattle to pasture during dryer months. These communities have long since vanished from view, but archaeological excavations have brought traces of their activities – including an extremely rare wooden find – to light once more.

This work has taken place because the environment around Poole Harbour continues to be affected by the changing climate. Rising sea levels are threatening important local bird habitats, and to mitigate these losses, a partnership between Kier, the Environment Agency, the RSPB, and Natural England is working to adapt 150ha (370 acres) at the Moors at Arne into a diverse wetlands habitat. As part of this initiative, Wessex Archaeology have carried out extensive investigations across the site in order to identify and uncover any underlying remains.

Their explorations began with geophysical surveys to identify areas of archaeological potential, as well as borehole surveys that have produced a wealth of environmental evidence, allowing the team to reconstruct how the local landscape evolved over time, both physically and in terms of vegetation. As well as the transformations described at the start of this article, this analysis has revealed that, by c.600 BC, changes in climate had created even larger areas of reed marsh, and by the start of the Roman period the remaining woodlands had either been cleared or completely died back, producing a landscape similar to that which we see today.

Over the last two summers, Wessex Archaeology have carried out open-area excavations on the site, targeting areas of archaeological interest in advance of the creation of the Moors at Arne scheme. These have identified three main areas of human activity: one is very recent, represented by a series of drainage ditches dug around 200 years ago; one is a sandy island preserving interesting evidence of Roman industrial activity, which we will describe in more detail in a future feature; and the third, dating to the Bronze Age, will form the focus of this article.

Rings on the ridge

In the western and central portion of the site was a low ridge rising about 0.5m-1m above the surrounding marshland. Its sandy make-up was a boon for the excavation team – any archaeology in this area was easy to spot, standing out starkly, black on white, but the geology also drained well, making it not-too challenging to dig, even in wet conditions. This latter quality appears to have appealed to Bronze Age visitors, too, who left behind more than 80 ring gullies of various sizes and shapes on this relatively high, dry land.