On the small Brittany island of Béniguet, archaeologists are hoping to uncover discarded household items trapped in the sand dunes since the Bronze Age. It's as much a scientific challenge as a human one. "We're going through the rubbish of people who lived here 4,000 years ago," says Yvan Pailler, an archaeologist at the University of Western Brittany (UBO), as he stands in front of the excavation site. "We're going to be able to see what these Beaker populations were like, how they lived on these islands, and how they traded," adds Clément Nicolas, an archaeologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES