'Fantastic discoveries' at Le Trepied Dolmen

The discovery was made by the Clifton Antiquarian Club, who have been digging around Le Trepied Dolmen, which stands on Le Catioroc, at the southern end of Perelle, for the last two weeks.

It is believed the structure is between 5,000 and 6,000 years old.

While the inside was thoroughly excavated during the Victorian era, the surroundings have remained untouched until now.

One of the dig co-ordinators, Laurie Waite, said some fantastic discoveries had been made, including a couple of dozen pieces of pot. One piece of pot has stripe indentations.

'It is quite thick – about 12mm,' Mr Waite said.

'It would have also been a very big pot – about eight or 12 inches in diameter. It was probably a storage pot.'

It was found well away from the chamber, which makes the historians believe it was possibly part of a pot which people used to bring food up to the site while they were working.

They only have a few fragments of pot, which means they cannot be recreated. But there were fashions for pot decoration, which changed over the decades.

'Decorated fragments are very datable,' Mr Waite said.

But the bits of charcoal found by the team might help even more in finding out how old the site is. The dark matter was found at the rear of the structure and could have been from when the knoll was cleared by burning.

Mr Waite said they would be radiocarbon dating the charcoal, which should tell them which century the matter is from.