Time Team presenter Tony Robinson has been working on what could be one of the UK's most exciting archaeological finds.

The former Blackadder star spent the weekend at a Sussex dig that might hold the key to explaining the lives of the people who introduced farming to Britain.

The site in Patching, dating from 4300 to 3500 BC, was discovered by amateur archaeologist John Henry Pull in 1922 while recovering from being gassed in the First World War.

Now experts believe his discovery could be one of the most significant relating to the Neolithic period.

For three days over the weekend teams of volunteers were working on land at Myrtle Grove Farm and Long Furlong Farm.

Neolithic sites in England are extremely rare. The land was made available for the dig because it is a designated environmentally sensitive area, which means the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pays the farmer not to cultivate it for crops. It is believed to contain traces of settlements alongside one of Europe's largest Neolithic flint mines.

Francis Pryor, a Neolithic and Bronze Age expert and Nottingham University lecturer who attended the dig, said: "I have worked on the Neolithic period for some time. One of the big mysteries is where did people live who brought farming to Britain?

"With the arrival of farming we became modern people, taking our destiny into our hands. We want to think of the Neolithic Age as the beginnings of modern life.

"One of the strange things in England is we don't have the houses of people who lived in the Neolithic period. There are probably two dozen contenders and this site may well have a lot of them.

"If it did it would be the prehistoric find of the year."

Dr Pryor said Neolithic people had not necessarily created the mine merely to find flint. He said: "In western society we believe in God and the heavens up there, but what's there to stop Heaven being down there? Maybe they believed they were going closer to their ancestors."

Tony said: "I love the idea there was a guy patrolling these sites 80 years ago who found what could be one of the most important archaeological discoveries in Britain in the last 100 years. Yet because he wasn't a professional archaeologist his findings were pooh-poohed.

"The fact we can come here to follow his work seems quite an incredible thing."

John Pull did carry out his own digs over a long period but the site eventually became farmland.

His daughter Beryl Heryet, from Worthing, who also attended the Time Team dig, said: "It is nice to know his feats have been recognised. I think it is good for archaeology and for the people who helped him with his digs."

Mr Pull died aged 61 in 1960 when he was shot by armed robbers just weeks after starting a new job as a security guard at Lloyds Bank, near Field Place, Durrington, Worthing.

Many of the artefacts he discovered are on display at Worthing Museum and Art Gallery.

The Time Team programme is expected to be shown on Channel 4 next year.