Bronze Age Activity on the Downs

c. 3000-1000 BC

The chalk downlands around Waterlooville, particularly the higher ground towards Butser Hill and the South Downs, show evidence of human activity stretching back thousands of years. Bronze Age barrows and earthworks have been found on the high ground to the north and east of the modern town. The landscape was open grassland and scrub, grazed by livestock and crossed by ancient trackways. The lower ground where Waterlooville now stands was likely wooded and marshy, less attractive for settlement than the well-drained chalk ridges. These early inhabitants left no written records, but their burial mounds and field systems survive as humps and hollows in the turf.