Neolithic landscape of Dorset

Away from home for this blog, I recently got to stay in the county of Dorset in the UK, and whilst I had a very very limited time to explore, the property I was in was very close to a fascinating neolithic landscape. Staying inland, the landscape isn't really different to that of Worcestershire with rolling farmland bisected by roads and in this case the busy A35 that every year ferries tourists like myself into Weymouth and Portland. However, unlike Worcestershire they have not destroyed all remnants of the past. There are a lot of features in one very small area but also more along the coast. Focusing on the area I was in, as that's really all I had time to explore, there was a long barrow, lots of bell barrows, a lone standing stone, and as I’m cheating and counting in a previous visit to the area, just down the road a really nice little stone circle. This sort of landscape is what really fascinates me at a deep level. WHY here, why in this admittedly lovely part of Dorset some…