Shipwreck and Coastal Heritage Centre
Prehistoric Hastings
The Iguanadon in Hastings Museum and Art Gallery
The grey clay into which the Anne and the Amsterdam sank lies on sandstone belonging to the 'age of the dinosaurs'. Over 120 million years ago, the area was the northen shore of a vast shallow lake which extended southwards from Sussex to beyond modern Paris.
The sandstone was formed by sands in the delta of a river that flowed from the North into the lake and preserves an extraordinary reminder of that distant age - footprints and bones of the very large vegetarian dinosaur, Iguanadon (a model of which can be seen in Hastings Museum and Art Gallery.
This animal walked on its hind legs as its three-toed footprints show on the sandstone outcrops of the present beach.
Prehistoric Submerged Forest
Five thousand years ago, the sea in the Hastings area was much lower than it is today and at the end of the Neolithic or New Stone Age and the beginning of the Bronze Age, a thick forest grew on the low flat land beside the English Channel.
Now it lies six metres below High Tide. The Low Tides reveal fallen tree-trunks and branches together with roots of trees that once grew on the clay beds. These are mostly Oak and Hazel and around them in the ancient peat soil are acorns and hazel nuts, perfectly preserved because the timbers were waterlogged by the sea.
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