How do you know where to dig and what type of equipment do you use for different types of stone and rocks when digging? Jack (11)

Personally, I work in commercial archaeology, and we are called whenever builders start a new site (to build houses, roads or offices). Of course, we check first what kind of archaeology we are likely to encounter: we go to the Records’ Office, we look and study the old maps, and we research the history of the place. After that, we usually do geophysics (a non-destructive way to test the ground using density and magnetic properties of buried remains) or trial trenching (digging trenches at random in a field and trying to identify any archaeological remains).

We usually use mechanical excavators to remove the topsoil and subsoil layers, until we reach the natural geology where we expose the archaeology. We then hand dig all the features we find, using mattocks, shovels and trowels and record them (take photographs, draw them and make notes). If we find a lot of archaeological features during a geophysical survey or during the trial trenching, the site then usually goes to full scale excavation.

If you work in a town, however, the techniques are different: you won’t be able to do geophysics or dig trenches, but you can be almost certain that you will find older remains underneath! In this case, you might have to use a mechanical excavator still to remove the modern rubble, until you reach your first archaeological layer.