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The waterlogged peat contains much information about the ancient history of the area. Tree trunks, branches and twigs can still be seen. The pollen grains preserved in the peat can tell us a great deal about the climate and vegetation of the past, and about the effects of early human activity. In addition, the peat has preserved the remains of long-vanished animals which can provide important information about the changes in sea level in the distant past. For this reason the area has been designed a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The earliest peat in this region was laid down about 7000 years ago. Roughly 1000 years later the area was inundated by the sea for the first time; a little over 5000 years ago more peat began to form as a result of a brief fall in sea level. On each occasion shallow freshwater pools formed along the coast, and these bogs were colonised by alder, elm, oak and hazel. Peat deposits gradually developed in the pools, reaching great depths in places.

This area was used by the earliest known inhabitants – hunter gatherers. These hunter gatherers did not have fixed settlements, but followed the game over wide areas, and set up temporary camps. In this area there have been frequent finds of bones and antlers of red deer, which shows they would have been hunted throughout the human occupation of the area. Some antlers have been worked into tools.

During building work in 1872, a tree stump was found in the buried peat beds at Newport, near Middlesbrough, which bore the marks of having been cut with an axe.

Fragments of pottery have been discovered, together with cores from which flint tools were made and a wooden lid with a handle. Finds of cattle and pig bones show us that animals were kept or husbanded. Another sign of domestication is the presence of tooth-marks on a piece of bone, showing that it had been gnawed by Hartlepool’s earliest known dog or wolf.

Perhaps the most exciting find was the skeleton of a Neolithic man, discovered in 1971, which may have been deliberately buried in the peat. The man was between 25 and 35 years old, and had been laid on the surface of the peat in a crouched position on his right side. Near his right elbow a small group of flint flakes had been placed, and there was some evidence that the body had been covered with branches and twigs of birch.

If the Hartlepool skeleton is the remains of a ritual burial it will be one of only a very small number known from the whole of the British Isles.