FINDS from York's medieval, Viking and Roman past - and possibly much further back than that - have been unearthed during a dig at a city centre church.

The first phase of Archaeology Live! the York Archaeological Trust's training dig at All Saints' Church in North Street is coming to an end, but with a second phase to be launched next spring.

Already the trainee archaeologists have found artefacts including two medieval dice, Roman pottery and a spindle whorl - a disc fitted onto a spindle to increase and maintain the speed of the spin - thought to be from the Viking era, said archaeologist Toby Kendall.

He said the trainees had been so meticulous that they had also found items which might date back to pre-historic times and which might not have been uncovered in a normal commercial dig.

He expected further finds when the resumed excavation digs deeper into York's past next year.

Church Warden Dr Robert Richards said in a newsletter that the site had yielded artefacts from almost every period up to the 1860s, when a church hall, later used as a boxing school, was built.

"A single phase of burial in the mid 19th century has left significant areas of intact medieval archaeology,"he said.

"They (the archaeologists) describe the numbers of finds as "substantial, even by York standards.

"Large quantities of Roman pottery were to be expected, but significant amounts of Viking pottery have also been found."

He added that the dig had also uncovered two rare pieces of possibly Anglian - pre-Viking -pottery.

• People have a chance to view the dig at an open day between 11am and 3pm today. For more information on the dig, go to http://archaeologylive.wordpress.com/