WHEN forking over a vegetable bed, or putting in new plants with a trowel, do you ever stop and wonder what exactly are those pieces of pottery you keep digging up?

Ryedale is rich in clues about our history and prehistory, but they are often just trodden underfoot. This Saturday, in Malton, there is a chance to find out just what it was that you found in the garden or out on a walk.

You can take your find to our own local archaeological experts and challenge them to rub a bit of mud off a one inch square piece of earthenware with one horny thumb and declare the find to be neolothic.

It's all good fun, but with its serious side, too. Malton and Norton Archaeological and Historical Society members will be stationed at Malton Museum to look over everyone's finds on Saturday, December 8.

Members are looking to make a real contribution to local archaeological and historical knowledge. A young archaeologists' club is also being formed.

Everyone from all over Ryedale and their bits and pieces are invited to the antiquities roadshow.

It's a bit like an antiques roadshow, except the experts will not price anything, rather say what it is, how old and the period it came from.

It's not just pottery that can be evaluated for its place in history. Flints, pieces of bone with marks on, bottles, buttons, clay pipes and so on are all welcome.

There is quite a lot of Roman Samian ware in the area, but it is not just the Romans who made their mark around Ryedale.

Although they left a road over the moors and a town plus fort under the turf, they are a relatively short part of our past.

For many more generations, there were warring bronze age tribes and before that, people from the stilt villages living out in the marshes in the old Lake Pickering, not to mention medieval Ryedale.

Perhaps your garden has a few pieces of clay pipe in its depths from around 1600 or maybe it's a bone comb that looks as if it's handmade.

Put your finds and the experts to the test on Saturday in Malton from 10am to 4pm.

The cost is just 50p, with proceeds going to society funds, and there is the pleasure of seeing what others have found too. There will also be an opportunity to join the popular new society.

Updated: 12:01 Thursday, December 06, 2001