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Digging back 10,000 years into the history of Chichester Harbour is now
possible from the comfort of your armchair. New sections have been
added to the Harbour Conservancy’s website that help to build up a
picture of the dramatic changes over the centuries.
Over the past four years, in-depth archaeological research has been
undertaken within Chichester Harbour Area of Outstanding Natural
Beauty. Much of this was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund as part of
the Rhythms of the Tide project. The results of this work have now been
made available to the public through the pages of the Conservancy’s
website www.conservancy.co.uk.
Within the Learning Zone (www.conservancy.co.uk/learn/Places/evidence.htm)
the research has been made accessible for students and teachers. The
site makes the results of the research easy to understand and explains
how archaeology is undertaken. Simple cartoons help to illustrate the
process from desk-top research through to field surveying and the more
technical methods used such as seismic refraction.
As part of
the project seven holes of up to 8m deep were drilled at various points
throughout the harbour and a core extracted from each. The Thorney
Island core can be explored on the website. Users can see what
sediments have been deposited in the harbour over the last 10,000
years; find out what other evidence is contained in the sediment and
how this can teach us about the changing harbour landscape and how it
was used.
Jean
Lyle, Field Studies Teacher for Chichester Harbour Conservancy said ‘We
wanted to share the excitement of these findings with everyone,
especially children. The web pages show how archaeology works and how
the results of patient research can be pieced together to give a
picture of the past. This section will be very useful for local schools
studying the history of the area’.
This new section complements the archaeological information in the main part of the website (www.conservancy.co.uk/environment/archaeology.asp).
Here more detailed research reports can be found providing a
compilation, of all the current archaeological knowledge for the
Chichester Harbour area. An informative timeline traces the harbour’s
history back over 450,000 and will be added to as new information
arises.
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The News 
