Here's advice from aspiring archaeologists Jessica Layton and Viola White. Ignore the ants. Focus on the artifacts.

The two 11-year-olds — White from Norcross and Layton from Knoxville — spent part of Thursday morning digging with spades in a small wooded plot where a house once stood. They were among 20 or so children at the "Digging the Past" day camp at the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center. The camp is one of several for science-minded kids.

REBECCA McCARTHY/STAFF (ENLARGE)

Participants at the Digging the Past summer camp Jessica Layton (left) and Sada Cox-Leconte sift dirt to see if they have unearthed anything. Participants had plots in an old homesite and dug for artifacts and remnants of others' lives at the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center.

"They're finding bricks and nails, glass and ceramics," said Catherine Long, who was running the camp. "I like to tell them we're looking for the trash of people's lives, the things they left behind. It's a way to make history come alive."

All last week, the would-be archaeologists were cleaning, washing and cataloging their finds, noting where on the Heritage Center property each item was discovered. These items will become part of the record of the center itself.

"We'll look at the patterns of discovery," said Long. "That'll tell us a little more about the people who lived here."

Earlier in the morning, two members of Camp 96 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans talked to the children about Civil War artifacts. They listened to David Floyd and Greg Beavers talk about finding belt buckles, bullets and coins from Civil War soldiers.

Meekah Howell, 9, of Auburn and Christian Barfield, 10, of Buford listened patiently to the men talking. They studied maps of Hog Mountain, an early settlement area in Gwinnett, that were passed around.

Christian said he has found glass, metal and old nails at different places. Meekah said he has found Native American bones. Both boys said they were interested in archaeology. And both want to see the new Indiana Jones movie.

At the homesite, the children worked in groups. They squatted around different small plots, delineated with string, and patiently turned over the dirt, one spade-ful at a time. Being careful, of course, to disregard the ants that marched across the plots.

Every so often, they would fill a shovel with dirt, and the person manning the shovel would then dump the dirt in a sieve. Two people would shake the sieve and see what remained, then bag it and write up a description.

"I've always wanted to be an archaeologist," said Sada Cox-Leconte, 11, who was holding a shovel. That was a common sentiment among the workers around her plot. Viola White wants to go to Egypt to study the pyramids.

"Oh, yuck!" said Jessica Layton. She picked up something blue from the dirt. "I laughed and it fell out. That's why it's bad to do archaeology and [chew] gum at the same time."