Colchester YAC go beach combing and fossil hunting on the Essex Coast


 

We had a warm sunny day for our trip to the coast. The time on the beach went all too quickly. Evidence of the wooded banks of the confluence of the Thames, Medway and proto Rhine rivers at this particular spot was noted from the amount of fossilised bark, which was collected in quantity, especially when the young people realised that millions of years ago,  long necked dinosaurs nibbled on the trees. Rising sea levels wiped out the land-based dinosaurs, but jurassic fossils have been found on this coast, swept down the rivers from the midlands. We founds fossilised whale bones and sharks teeth, fish eggs, and freshwater snails from the river areas. This year we hired a room in the visitor centre, where YAC volunteers prepared refreshments and our expert could examine and help us date our finds. One young man had brought in a worked flint used by early man and found on a previous trip he made further along the coast. On our visit to Fordham last month, the chair of Colchester Archaeological Group had given us a fossil sponge. Our expert explained these small cannon-ball-like fossils had been used for sling shot by the Celts. A fossilised tooth was brought in to be identified.



 

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