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Discovering Archaeology

Downland barrows, Roman villas and ancient settlements
Wherever we walk on the Island, we follow in the footsteps of ancient peoples. Their legacy to us can be seen in the monuments and archaeological remains which pepper the landscape, a landscape which they themselves helped create.
Above Freshwater Bay lies an earthen long barrow (an ancient tomb) which is now 5,000 years old, left to us by the Stone Age community which lived there. Opposite, on Tennyson Down, early Stone Age farmers set to work on a similar tomb and, if you take a walk on the down today, you can see the outline of the mortuary enclosure (the first stage of the tomb) where the bodies of the dead were left in the open before burial.

Above the pretty village of Mottistone lies the most ambitious of the prehistoric tombs. At the eastern end of the long mound, facing a rising sun, is the Longstone. This great stone pillar is a lasting testimony of Stone Age engineering skills and as statement of faith in the rising of new life.
Bronze Age Islanders crowned their hilltops with bold round burial mounds, now named tumuli. Each tumulus honoured a dead leader and proclaimed, from its position in the landscape, the family territory. Strung out along the tops of the downs, barrows like those on Brook Down and Headon Warren are there for you to find.

The Romans named our Island "Vectis". The name may mean the place that rises up or divides. In their fine villas (farmsteads), the remains of which can be found at Newport and Brading, you can see the comforts and pleasures of a Roman way of life.

Hidden amongst the creeks of Northern Wight lies Newtown, a settlement established in the 13th century. At first glance, this place seems to show little more than fields and hedgerows but look at little closed and you realise you are walking the ancient thoroughfares of a once prosperous medieval port. The elegant town hall, built in 1699, stands alone. Protected by the National Trust, it is open to the public in summer.

Dinosaur Island

One of Europe's finest sites for dinosaur remains 120 million years ago, there was no Isle of Wight, it was landlocked, part of a large continent. In the muds and silts of ancient marshy environments, animals and plants were trapped and preserved as fossils. These can now be found in the cliffs and on the beaches around the Island's coast.
The oldest rocks are the wealdon clays formed when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The yellow, brown and grey rocks exposed in the bays of Compton, Brook and Brighstone contain fossilised tress and dinosaur bones! Giant casts of dinosaur footprints in stone are a famous feature at Hanover Point. Dinosaur fanatics will be fascinated by the exhibits on show at Dinosaur Isle, Sandown and the Dinosaur Farm along the Military Road.

Later, these ancient marshy environments were covered by deep tropical seas. In these oceans lived millions of minute plankton, shellfish and plants. When they died, their shell cases fell to the seabed and built up over millions of years to form chalk. When you walk on top of St Boniface Down (the Island's highest point), would you believe that you were treading on the floor of an ancient sea over 70 million years old?

All these ancient layers were buried, compacted and then uplifted to be exposed in the rocks. The importance of the Island's strata was recognised in Victorian days when famous scientists, including the evolutionist, Charles Darwin, examined the cliffs to study the fossil remains. Today, geologists continue to examine the rocks to understand the complex processes which formed the present Isle of Wight. To help you enjoy and interpret this scenery, take part in one of the organised "fossil hunting" trips. They provide an up date interpretation of rocks, fossils and landscape. Sometimes a "find" proves very exciting, especially if it is unknown in the fossil record. Such fossils contribute to our knowledge of these ancient environments.