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Listen to Dr Jill Greenaway's talk on 10,000 years' worth of artefacts found in the River Thames:

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A Nazi dagger, a Zulu spear and even a 5th Century BC Greek pot - dredging the River Thames has uncovered an array of riches dating back 10,000 years, from Mesolithic flints to ginger beer bottles.

The Reading Museum Service's Thames Water collection contains more than 500 items that were found by dredger crews between 1911 and 1980.

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Look at a selection of artefacts found in the River Thames in this gallery:

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Curator of Archaeology at Reading Museum Service, Dr Jill Greenaway, explains the reason for the unexpected riches found in the Thames:

Dr Jill Greenaway

"The idea was to keep the Thames clear for navigation and remove shoals, and after the 1947 floods there as a programme of deep dredging to prevent flooding and deepen the Thames.

"That disturbed the ancient river bed and a lot of material came out subsequent to that."

Artefacts found show the life of the times - prehistoric axe heads found were used to clear trees when the first farmers started to grow crops near the river.

In the Bronze Age when metals started to be used, high quality items such as swords that have been found looks like they could be offerings to the God of the Thames.

"'Now' the Thames is a navigable channel," says Dr Greenaway, "'then' the bed changed its course many times and there must have been a lot of flooding.

"If your livlihood depended on growing crops, you're going to want to keep that God very happy."

Artefacts from the Roman period on the other hand seem to be on the whole "rubbish".

"Tiles, pottery - they seem to have been much more matter-of-fact people, there's no hint of ritual deposit. This is stuff that fell in when it was being transported or found its way in from riverside settlements."

However artefacts from the Saxon period - 5th to 11th century AD - it looks like more offerings have been made to the river.

Shackles found in the River Thames

"We have a number of high quality swords," explains Dr Greenaway.

"One particular single-edged sword which is called a 'scramasax', where the blade is inlaid with copper, silver and brass - that isn't something that could be a casual loss.

"The kind of person carrying that was not going to want to lose it and was going to be taking care of it."

One item of particular interest to Dr Greenaway is a 17th century civil war breastplate, which is so small it looks like a child's size.

"I always think we should be looking at these objects and try to think about the people behind them and their beliefs and how they lived," she says.

"You look at this breastplate and think 'gosh, that was not a very big person who wore that' and why is it in the river? It would have been a very valuable item and you'd have expected someone to have taken it from the body.

"So did this man fall in the river and drown?"

One of the oddities of the collection is a Greek pot that dates back to the fifth century BC.

A miscellany of items found in the River Thames

"We used to think that this 5th century BC pot was a modern loss - a collector's loss - but now because of a lot of research we now believe this was a contemporary loss.
"It's the most northerly item - the furthest away from Athens - and this has implications for trade. Were Greek traders coming this far?"

Other unusual items include a zulu spearhead, 18th century shackles, and a Nazi dagger in almost perfect condition.

"It had been oiled and well looked after," says Dr Greenaway of the dagger.

"Was this a souvenir after the Second World War? But why did it end up in the Thames? Had someone stolen it? Did someone then feel it brought back too many painful memories and they wanted to get rid of it?"

Indeed the river was a handy place for people in the past to get rid of their rubbish, "particularly in the days when you didn't have dustbin collections", says Dr Greenaway.

For example, a lot of old 19th and early 20th century stoneware and glassware bottles are found near to areas where there are pubs or racecourses.

Dr Greenaway says: "We don't have a shopping trolley in the collection, but sometimes I wonder whether we should!".