It is May the 11th, 1939, just before midday.

On a country estate in Suffolk, Easton, England, three men are at work excavating.

They have dug a trench just over a meter wide that cuts across a small grassy hillock.

The biggest of almost 20 mounds are various sizes on the sandy heathland that rolls down

to the river Deben.

The estate is known as Sutton Hu.

In Old English Sutton means a southern farmstead or settlement, and a Hu is a high spur of land.

A stone's throwaway stands a large pale Edwardian house.

From time to time, its owner, Edith Pretty, glances through the bay windows to try and catch

a glimpse of her employee's progress.

In charge of the group is Basel Brown.

A self-taught archaeologist is a slight man wearing a battered trilby and smoking a bubbling

pipe.

He is helped by a gardener, John Jacobs, and William Spooner, a gamekeeper.

Its warm work in the May sunshine.

Brown's mind has started to drift to thoughts of lunch, but then a sharp shout interrupts

his daydreaming.

The gardener is calling out that he has found a bit of iron.

Brown rushes over to Jacobs in time to stop him from removing his fine from its position

in the sandy soil.

It's a rusty rivet, a large mushroom-shaped nail for holding together pieces of wood.

Brown calls a pause to proceedings.

...