Ever since 1718, when Jean Baptiste le Moyne de Bienville, a French colonist, decided to build his settlement on a hurricane-prone patch of swampland surrounded by three huge pools of water (the Mississippi Delta, the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain), New Orleans has been living in nature's shadow.

ECONOMIST: Hurricane Katrina

The items recovered from the site are being analysed at the Oxford Archaeology North Laboratory in Lancaster to help build a better picture of how the settlement has developed and will be donated to Norton Priory Museum in Runcorn.

BBC: Runcorn dig uncovers medieval lion head