## 1 Introduction  
Dungeness is a prominent cusgate foreland on the south coast of England that is around 25 km wide and projects almost 10 km into the English Channel (Figure 1). It is reported to be the largest coastal shingle feature in Europe [1]. The shape of the foreland has evolved through the late Holocene, as it has prograded southwards into the Channel [2]. Shingle ridges on the surface of the foreland record these changes in the morphology of the ness and have been mapped by [3] and [4]. The positions of the shorelines at Dungeness, as shown by historic maps from 1617 and 1800, are used to assess historic changes in the shoreline [3]. The 1617 map drawn by [PERSON] was used by [3] to represent the shoreline in 1600, although, as they note, it is only approximately correct because the shoreline does not correspond with the orientation of the shingle ridges [3]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [3] comment that none of the maps from the next two centuries inspire enough confidence to allow them to draw a shoreline between 1600 and 1800. Subsequent shoreline locations are more accurately represented by Ordnance Survey maps. Measurements from 1871 and 1908 Ordnance Survey maps, supplemented by field surveys in 1938-1939, are included in [3], although there is some confusion over the date of the earlier survey, which is variously shown as 1871, 1873, and 1878 ([3], p. 268). Their results show that average rates of progradation between 1873 and 1938 decreased from south to north with an average of 4 m/year at the Ness, decreasing to 0.25 m/year around 5.7 km to the north near Greatstone. Much of the shingle at Dungeness accumulated as recurved spits [4]. The change from recurved spit to cuspate foreland morphology at Dungeness is relatively recent [4], and cartographic evidence shows the closure of an inlet between Greatstone and Littlestone between 1879 and 1905, which was probably artificial [4]. Figure 1: (**A**) Dungeness location on the south coast of England. (**B**) Google EarthTM satellite image of Dungeness; the light toned areas are shingle with little vegetation, inset boxes show locations of Figure 5a–f. (**C**) Annotated map showing the shape of the cuspate foreland, locations described in this paper, and the directions of longshore drift (red arrows) from [4]. The study section shown in detail in Figure 3 is depicted by gray tone. The single ridges at Dungeness are beach ridges. The term beach ridge is widely used in the literature and has been applied to different coastal features as in [5; 6]. In this paper we follow the definition of [7; 8], where beach ridges are defined as'swash aligned, swash and storm wave-built deposits or ridges formed primarily of sand, pebbles, cobbles (gravel) or boulders, or a combination of these sediments' [7; 8] (p.73). Indeed, ref. [8] notes that 'the classic beach ridges are the storm-built shingle and cobble ridge such as those at Dungeness [8] (p. 73). The shingle ridges overlie intertidal and subtidal sands that have OSL ages between 5000 and 400 years [9], indicating that the cuspate foreland is Holocene in age. In the field, there is a sharp break between the shingle foreshore and underlying sand (Figure 2), making Dungeness a composite gravel beach as defined by [10]. The combination of change in slope and change in sediment permits mapping of the sand shingle contact. The tidal range at Dungeness is macrotidal with a mean tide range of around 5.3 m. The wave climate is bimodal and bidirectional with the most frequent and the largest waves coming from the southwest and less frequent and smaller waves from the east [11]. The resulting longshore drift causes a net migration of shingle from West to East, accompanied by erosion on the south side of the ness and accretion on the east side [1; 2; 4]. Historic rates of erosion on the south side, derived from maps dated 1816 to 1906, are similar to the accretion rate over the same period, although the accretion rate may be underestimated as not all of the coast was covered, and there could be inaccuracies on older maps [1].