The December meeting of the Burton Bradstock Village Society formed an excellent sequel to the October talk on the Jurassic Coast Project. This time Mr. Bill Putnam, former Princi-pal Lecturer in Archeology at Bournemouth University, gave an insight into the earliest hu-man race, as opposed to the rocks, fossils and dinosaurs, discussed by Richard Edmunds. Bill explained how, with the help of radio-carbon dating, a by-product of atomic research in the Second World War, and other modern technology, the twentieth century has seen an as-tounding period of research in the world of archeology. Now it is possible to have absolute dating of remote periods and, with it, a total historic revolution has developed. Members were shown slides of everyday objects used some 3 million years ago by our ancestors. The earliest man made objects so far found in Dorset are stone axes from about 15,000 years ago; the most visible from our prehistoric past are the great Iron Age hill forts like Maiden Castle and Badbury Rings. Members were amazed to see what prehistoric men had built with such basic tools. The next meeting will be held on 14th January when Mr. Colin Varndell will talk on "Per-sonal Favourites to Celebrate the Millenium".

see also Prehistoric Burton Bradstock page on this site

Sheila Pett - Press Officer.