History buffs' treasure hunt

Archaeology-loving students are preparing for the next step on their quest to discover ancient secrets hidden in an East Yorkshire field.

And they are inviting you to play a part in uncovering the centuries-old treasures which may be waiting to be brought to the surface in a quiet village.

The group struck lucky earlier this year when one of their members, 24-year-old University of York archaeology undergraduate Chris Bevan started digging in the back garden of his new home in Holme-on-Spalding Moor and found Roman remains.

More pottery artefacts were also discovered in the garden and a nearby field, and Chris - along with fellow history-hunters Ellie Cox, Preston Boles, Mark Bell and Chris Brown - now plan to focus their efforts on a second field in the village where they believe more links to the area's past are hidden in the new year. They are looking for volunteers to help them in their search.

Chris said: "We've done a preliminary scan of this second field and we are pretty sure there's Roman and medieval pottery there, and possibly some prehistoric pottery as well.

"It's difficult to say how much might be there, but we had around 2,000 finds in the first field we studied, so once we search the second one we could be looking at 4,000 to 5,000 finds in total.

We are hoping to do a field walk' - where the field is split into a grid and each person picks up everything they find in their particular section - in March and we are looking for around 15 or 20 volunteers to help us.

"If we get that many people offering to take part, we could complete the search in a couple of days. People don't need to have any archaeology experience - they just need to be interested in it, and it's always a good day out."

While delving into the past, Chris and his time-team have been helped by the University of York, where they all study, and members of the York and District Metal-Detecting Club.

Chris said: "There aren't many areas of the UK where you cannot find some sort of archaeology, but to discover something of this potential scale on my doorstep is definitely not something I was expecting when I moved here.

"It's difficult to say yet how significant a find this might be, but we could be about to come across some very important things because there are clearly an awful lot of artefacts here.

"There's no evidence yet that there was a settlement in the Holme-on-Spalding Moor area, but this search might be able to produce that evidence."

If you want to find out more about helping Chris and his team, email hosmarchaeology@hotmail.co.uk

From: This is York.co.uk