Ancient Dorset

I understand that not everyone may appreciate or grasp the profound nature of being able to read an ancient landscape or view a vast geological timeline in the manner and fashion I choose to view our world but large tracts of West Dorset, (almost uniquely, I’d claim), represent a, virtually, untouched natural environment where evidence of earth’s early formation, (and records of early man’s prehistoric Hunter – Gatherer past), are still written large in the landscape.

And I promise you, once you begin to examine and appreciate Dorset’s unique and spectacular landscapes, geology and ancient history, it is as if you have been given a real life time machine!

I mean; just imagine bending down on one knee in the rich black mineralised soil of a deep ploughed furrow somewhere out in the middle of nowhere … and to then find, retrieve and hold a near 2000 year old Roman bronze coin that has not felt a human gaze placed upon it since the time of Jesus!

Anyway … with just a little guidance from myself via these pages, I hope to use this section of the website to highlight ancient wonders of West Dorset; wonders that represent treasures that lie hidden in plain sight just beyond or beneath the surface veneer of the spectacular landscapes and visions that Dorset gifts us.

All that said; actually experiencing such a profound phenomenon does involve a certain suspension of belief in as much as we need to detach ourselves from our hectic 21st century view of the world.

Once achieved though, we will enter a mindset where we can begin to connect the corners and edge pieces of an old and ancient puzzle together and begin to see the bigger picture.

So lets start that process now …

I’m sure, if you’re young, you’ve watched amazing BBC documentaries like Prehistoric Planet featuring narration by David Attenborough and if you’re older, you can recall movies like 1 Million Years BC, with an iconic Raquel Welch striding out of a prehistoric ocean in a fur lined bikini.

Such visions do, indeed, belong to a past that is lost in the annuls of time yet if you live near or frequent a West Dorset location like Bridport or Charmouth, such prehistoric geological or ancient historical locations can be explored by simply taking a short walk to the beach or the countryside.

And that’s the reason I’m so passionate about Dorset and ancient history in general.

Because, here in West Dorset, unlike 85% of the UK’s population, (who live in built up or city environments), we have the whole gamut of geological and human history laid out, almost undisturbed or untarnished right before our eyes.

Although the earth is approx 4.5 billion years old, for expediency and convenience, I’m going to start pondering the history of ancient Dorset at about 290 million years ago at a time when earth was a single continent called Pangea.

Back then, Dorset, or at least the real estate we now label as Dorset, would have been residing on a slab of rock right over the equator. (A teutonic plate we know today as Eurasia)

Dinosaurs were a thing back then and many of the creatures we uncover in fossil form along our own West Dorset coast are lifeforms that thrived in the shallow seas and red deserts that Dorset (and Devon) now represents and reveals in the geological record.

And today, we have developed a global record of fossil artefacts documenting all of the world’s fossil finds and discoveries across the planet.

The scientific discipline that explores and examines such artefacts is called Paleontology; a science first pioneered by a West Dorset woman of the 18th century.