‘You can see the joy in their faces’: the project digging up the past to improve teenagers’ wellbeing

The group has been uncovering examples of neolithic pottery on Coombe Bissett Down. Photograph: Wessex Archaeology

On a gently sloping hillside just outside the cathedral city of Salisbury, a group of teenagers are carefully sifting through the chalky earth in search of ancient signs of human life.

Their patience pays off when they uncover pieces of worked flint and fragments of pottery, evidence that this spot in the south-west of England has been settled over many hundreds of years since neolithic times.