Archaeology of the Channel Islands

By the 18th century articles were being published in magazines with engravings explaining interesting historic sites.

The Museums also holds important collections of antiquarian finds, dominated by 250 prehistoric stone tools, mostly gathered together by the Lukis family mainly in the 1830s and 1840s.

[5] Long-term projects have included: Maritime archaeology is similarly regulated and protected by laws, with displays at the Shipwreck Museum at Fort Grey and the Maritime Museum at Castle Cornet The “Guernsey Sites and Monument Record” is compiled and maintained by the Archaeology Officer.

It is a register of known archaeological sites and find spots within the Bailiwick of Guernsey, including Ancient Monuments.

[6] Sections of early archaeological evidence on Alderney has sadly been destroyed, firstly during the Victorian era of quarrying and building fortifications and later by the German occupiers repeating the process.

There followed a dramatic rise: by 9,400 BC the sea had risen to come close to where it now lies, but with the islands still connected to mainland France.

[8] There are very high tides and swift currents in the Mont Saint-Michel Bay which caused additional erosion between Jersey and the French coast.

The archaeological community debate whether the Neolithic Revolution was brought to the British Isles through adoption by natives, or by migrating groups of continental Europeans who settled there,[15] however evidence of a farming lifestyle exists in Guernsey from the start of the Neolithic period, a thousand years earlier than on mainland Britain.

Alderney has a cist, or burial chamber named Roc à l’Epine dating from 4,000 BC.