Excavation work is taking place at Foxrush Farm

The work at Foxrush Farm is being organised by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and Tees Archaeology.

It will last for two weeks before dozens of local schoolchildren will be given the chance to explore the site and surrounding woodland.

Any samples uncovered will be sent to scientists at the University of Durham to analyse.

The dig is the third at the site.

Project director Rachel Grahame said of the area: "There is some sort of industrial area, but we don't know exactly what they're doing.

"It's some sort of industry, they're making something because there are layers and layers of different things built on top of each other.

"They might have been producing salt and trading it with other communities. If you were in the middle of North Yorkshire, there'd be nowhere to get salt, apart from someone on the coast."