Butcher Michael Dearden (56), from Micklefield in Leeds, was walking in the village with his wife Cathie (54) when he found the odd pot left on the top of a dry stone wall and took it home.

He said: “It’s all countryside out there and as we came round one bit, there was a dry stone wall and the urn was just placed on top of it. Someone must have put it there.

“The only thing I can think is that someone else had come across it and put it up there.

“I think it had been in a stream perhaps because of the markings on it. It's made me think about getting myself a metal detector.”

Mr Dearden said he suspected it was old but did not realise just how old it was until he read an article in one of the Whitby Gazette’s sister papers The Yorkshire Evening Post which featured a burial urn uncovered by archaeologists at a sewage treatment plant in Dewsbury and he now thinks his find back in January was the same thing.

Richard Fraser, director of Northern Archaeological Associates, the firm carrying out the work, said the Bronze Age urn was traditionally used to contain funeral ashes.

He said it was entirely possible that a similar urn could have been found in Sandsend and offered to examine Mr Dearden's Bronze Age pot.

He said: “They can be found across the Pennines and Yorkshire Moors and into County Durham, but not many are found further south than the Dewsbury one.

“It's definitely a regional type of vessel and could be found in parts of Scotland even.

“I would be interested to see pictures of this urn and could have them examined by experts to see what information we can find out about it.””