Charlie Dortch was born in Atlanta, Georgia, where he began his interest in the peoples of the first nations, and in history and archaeology.
Dortch was invited to apply for a position as curator of the archaeological department of the Western Australian Museum by Ian Crawford, newly appointed to the museum's anthropology department.
After settling in Western Australia, he joined the palaeontologist Duncan Merrilees in beginning a study of the site at Devils Lair, an important fossil site located in Southwest Australia.
Many of the papers to which he contributed concern this site and its evidence of early mammalian fauna.
[6][7] He was also interested in the altered coast, shoreline and lakes of the south west where he investigated submerged sites.