The second phase of a project to find out more about the area's past is about to get underway as a result of partnership between academics, national park chiefs, and English Heritage.

The North East Yorkshire Mesolithic project will investigate areas on the moors, along the coast and in the Tees Valley which were previously inhabited by Mesolithic – middle stone age – people to get a more detailed picture of the period from 10,000 to 4,000 BC.

With funding from English Heritage, the Park Authority is teaming up with the Tees Archaeology organisation and specialists from Durham University.

They will even analyse pollen grains to gain more insight into the Mesolithic environment.

The results of the investigation will be used to raise awareness and understanding of this distant and little-known period in time for visitors to the National Park.

Mags Waughman, the National Park Authority's archaeological conservation officer, said: "This is an exciting project which will give us a much clearer picture about the Mesolithic period .

"This was a time between the end of the last ice age and the appearance of early farming when the population was nomadic and lived by hunting and gathering wild foods."

The National Park Authority's archaeology volunteers are also helping out and will be shown how to recognise Mesolithic flint tools and identify sites from the scatters of flint sometimes found on moorland footpaths.

Once trained, they will be out on the Moors through the summer and autumn looking for and recording evidence for new sites.

Ms Waughman said: "An initial stage of work gathering all the currently known evidence for the Mesolithic was completed in 2006.

"Using this information, the second stage starting now will investigate some of the areas which we know were occupied by Mesolithic people to increase our knowledge of what their life was like."