Dorset Museums 14-Poole Museum

FOR FOR YOUR REGULAR DOSE OF DORSET ENTER YOUR EMAIL IN THE BOX ON THE RIGHT!

Standing in the old town close to the quay, Poole Museum was fully refurbished in 2007. A modern atrium leads through to galleries housed in one of Poole Quay's old warehouses . Wide-ranging displays document the archaeological, social and maritime history of the area. Best of all admission is free

Poole harbour is the world's largest natural harbour and has attracted people to its shores since time immemorial. The Romans were here and several of their roads converge on the harbour.
Three hundred years before their arrival and predating Brittany ferries by several thousand years a group of Iron Age Dorset chaps were busily constructing the largest primitive boat to be found in Britain. This is it. 

Its actually far more impressive than my humble photo indicates.
Found during dredging operations in 1964, the boat measured almost ten metres and was carved from a single oak. Specially adapted for the shallow harbour waters it could hold eighteen people but no duty-free's.
It took forty years to find a way of satisfactorily preserving it. 

The answer, though, was quite mundane to submerge it in a solution, of sugar.

Dorset Museums-Dorchester County Museum 1

Hot on the heels of my Viking piece here's a telling bit of evidence from the County museum that shows that Dorsetshire men didn't always get the best of a fight. 
Two thousand years ago at Maiden Castle, a fortified hill top near Dorchester, the locals faced a load of Italian Johnnies in a battle between two civilisations. 

Iron Age man was eventually overwhelmed by the might and technological superiority of the Roman Empire, armed mainly with slingstones taken from nearby Chesil Beach. 

The outcome of the conflict helped change the course of British history forever.
The skeleton pictured is shows one of the Iron Age defenders who was struck down by a bolt from a Roman ballista (a powerful floor standing crossbow). When the fort fell to the Romans, the unfortunate victim was hastily bundled into pit the ballista bolt that would have instantly killed him still embedded in his vertebra .