JUST who was the skeleton archaeologists dug up at Bolton's premier tourist attraction at the weekend?

Baffled boffins studied ancient artifacts as they worked under the blazing sun...at Smithills Hall.

The unique event was part of a mock-up excavation dreamed up by Bolton Museum staff.

The grandeur of Smithills Hall provided the perfect back-drop for would-be archaeologists.

But when Bolton museum staff challenged locals to dig up their ancestors, little did they realise the overwhelming response they would get.

Schools innundated history staff at Bolton Museum with inquiries in order to bring their archaelogical know-how into the classroom.

But instead, staff decided to hold a bizarre archaeology weekend coinciding with a national initiative to teach the painstaking craft.

Teams spent most of the weekend digging up artifacts, drawing graphs and brushing soil -- to reveal a skeleton. Squeals of delight could be heard as youngsters unwrapped the secrets of a "burial site" aided by Bolton Museum Education Officer, Peter Brown and real-life archaeologist Alexandra Whittaker.

Smithills Hall was a far cry from Alexandra's last dig...in Egypt! The Smithills burial site was a wooden box shaped like a coffin.

Layers of soil covered a skeleton but vital clues were cleverly hidden to build an acurate picture of ancient times.

"Hurry up - the builders will soon start putting a drain in," shouted Pete Brown in an attempt to add a realistic touch to the proceedings.

After the second dig, Pete Brown said: "We were considering going into schools but it would be very difficult to run.

"We decided to do this at Smithills Hall and have had a very good response. We were fully booked up."

The event is similar to a mock-up excavation dig which proved popular at Bolton Museum six years ago.

Vic Longworth brought his seven year old boy, Max to the dig "because he's into dinosaurs."

But Vic, of Westhoughton, said: "It was a little bit too technical. Max wasn't into drawing the graph or anything. He just wanted to see a dinosaur. He was a little bit too young to understand what was really going on.

"But I think this is a great idea. They should go into schools and spend the day with the kids -- they'd love it."

Once the teams had retrieved their artifacts from the burial site they worked inside the ancient Tudor mansion with other museum experts in a bid to discover what they could about the mystery skeleton.