the county and two railway main lines connect to London. Dorset has ports at Poole, Weymouth and Portland, and an international airport near Bournemouth. The county has a variety of museums, theatres and festivals, and is host to the Great Dorset Steam Fair, one of the biggest events of its kind in Europe. It is the birthplace of Thomas Hardy, who used the county as the principal setting of his novels, and William Barnes, whose poetry celebrates the ancient Dorset dialect. Toponymy Dorset derives its name from the county town of Dorchester. The Romans established the settlement in the 1st century and named it Durnovaria which was a Latinised version of a Common Brittonic word possibly meaning "place with fist-sized pebbles". The Saxons named the town Dornwaraceaster (the suffix -ceaster being the Old English name for a "Roman town"; cf. Exeter and Gloucester) and Dornsæte came into use as the name for the inhabitants of the area from Dorn (a reduced form of Dornwaraceaster) and the Old English word sæte (meaning "people"). It is first mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in AD 845 and in the 10th century the county's archaic name, Dorseteschyre (Dorsetshire), was first recorded. History Early history The first human visitors to Dorset were Mesolithic hunters, from around 8000. The first permanent Neolithic settlers appeared around 3000 BC and were responsible for the creation of the Dorset Cursus, a monument for ritual or ceremonial purposes. From 2800 BC onwards Bronze Age farmers cleared Dorset's woodlands for agricultural use and Dorset's high chalk hills provided a location for numerous round barrows. During the Iron Age, the British tribe known as the Durotriges established a series of hill forts across the county—most notably Maiden Castle which is one of the largest in Europe. The Romans arrived in Dorset during their conquest of Britain in AD 43. Maiden Castle was captured by a Roman legion under the command of Vespasian, and the Roman settlement of Durnovaria was established nearby. Bokerley Dyke, a large defensive ditch built by the county's post-Roman inhabitants near the border with modern-day Hampshire, delayed the advance of the Saxons into Dorset for almost 150 years. It appears to have been re-fortified during this period, with the former Roman Road at Ackling Dyke also being blocked by the Britons, apparently to prevent the West Saxon advance into Dorset. However, by the end of the 7th century, Dorset