Dorset's coastline is justly famous for its geology; its archaeological heritage deserves to be better known. This guide, which takes the form of an exploraton of the Dorset coastal path from Studland to Lyme Regis, aims to achieve this by showing the reader how to recognise and interpret traces of past human activity, and how to distinguish these from the effects of natural processes. Every period of the past from the late Stone Age to the present is represented in this narrow strip of southern Britain, and almost all types of archaeological sites from burials and settlements to industrial and military are encountered in the book. A section of the guide groups the sites in chronological order and provides a summary of the most important historical changes they illustrate.