The finds have been cleaned and marked and then catalogued before being boxed and safely stored ready to be looked at by specialists. Some finds made of materials such as metal or wood will need special conservation to stabilise and preserve them.

The soil samples collected onsite have been put through a special sieving process to extract small bones, snails and seeds that will tell us about the ancient environment on the Ridgeway.

Information from the written records, drawings and photographs, which were produced during the excavation, will also be collated and analysed.

At the end of the interpretation process, a report will be produced which draws all the information together. It will give us lots of new information on how the Ridgeway was used by different people over the past six thousand years.

After this, all the records and finds will be sent to the Dorset County Museum for long-term storage where they can be consulted by future researchers or put on display.

• Human bone

  A number of prehistoric and Roman burials were excavated on Ridgeway Hill. After washing and marking, the bones will be analysed and recorded by osteologists, who specialise in examining human remains.

• Animal bone, pottery and other finds

  Finds recovered from the Ridgeway Hill excavations include human and animal bones, pottery of various dates, prehistoric tools made from knapped flints, metalwork such as nails and a small fragment of a Bronze Age dagger, shells, pieces of coal, glass and clay pipes.