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Jaime
Kaminski
Sussex Archaeological Society
Barbican House
169 High Street
Lewes
BN8 1YE
Exceptionally violent storms in January 1998 exposed numerous scattered tree trunks and the snaking course of an ancient channel on the foreshore at Bognor Regis. Records of previous antiquarian and archaeological studies, particularly the discovery of a 'submerged forest', had already highlighted the foreshore as an area of importance. The remains of waterlogged trees and prehistoric finds have been found since the mid-19th century along the edge of the former course of the Aldingbourne Rife, now a small river which divides Bognor Regis from Felpham. These remains and the fills of the ancient channel have only occasionally been exposed on the beach at low tides, following the removal of beach sand and gravels by storms. The tree trunks and branches were radiocarbon dated to the Early Bronze Age. Bronze Age activity in the form of pottery, worked flints and a fence line were found along the western side of the ancient channel. Pollen evidence and dendrochronological analysis suggest that there had been a wood in the area, its demise being due to rising relative sea levels.