The site was first discovered by divers from the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology (now the Maritime Archaeology Trust) in 1999, when a lobster was observed discarding worked flint tools from its burrow on the seabed. Since then, several years of fieldwork have revealed that Bouldnor was a settlement site about 8,000 years ago, at a time when lower sea levels meant that the Solent was just a river valley. The work done so far has already revealed that the technology of Mesolithic settlers was probably 2,000 years ahead of what had previously been believed.