Did you miss the Road To Archaeology livestream on March 10th? You can catch up with all the news right here, or alternatively head to the bottom of the post to watch the entire thing!

Just a few weeks remain until the Archaeology skill rolls out into RuneScape.

More information about the story and relics for this brand new skill is on the way, but before its launch on March 30th, we wanted to take you behind the scenes and show off just what you'll be doing as you explore Gielinor.

Archaeology

Excavation

This is the bread and butter of the Archaeology skill and sees you getting your hands dirty and hacking at the dirt with your trusty mattock in the hopes of finding treasure.

Archaeology introduces lots of new materials!

The more you excavate, the closer you come to discovering an artefact, though sadly it will likely be broken – potentially due to overzealous use of the mattock! In addition to finding ancient goodness in the dirt, you'll also start to acquire soil in your inventory. You can then sift through this to find even more materials and even – if you're very lucky – artefacts!

Materials and soil can be traded, as can the currency, but artefacts cannot.

Mattocks use the same Smithing materials as pickaxes, but there aren't any +1 (etc) versions.

If you follow the many time sprites around the dig sites, you’ll receive a better rate of XP per hour, find materials more often and discover artefacts faster.

You can also excavate material caches, which only contain one kind of material and are a shared resource that deplete and replenish.

"It's slightly different compared to Fishing or Woodcutting.In Woodcutting you can cut a yew tree and get yew logs. Archaeology has you excavating at a spot which can give you multiple different types of material. That's the main difference between Archaeology and other gathering skills." ~ Mod Ryan

Restoration

Having found your artefacts in the ground, the next step is to restore them to their former glory. Artefacts can be restored at research benches, which are at the dig site entrances and Guild Campus, using a variety of materials and resources that can be either found, traded or bought. This delivers the most significant amount of XP in the Archaeology skill.

After restoring your finds, you have a choice. Do you give the artefact to the Varrock Museum? Do you give it to one of the ten somewhat sketchy-looking collectors? Do you disassemble it for new components? Or destroy them (joke!)?

You can see which collectors want to buy up an artefact you have and how close you are to completing a specific collection.

There are several collectors, each looking for items to flesh out their collections. These are a mix of old and new characters.

You can’t hand in an item to a collection again unless the collection has been completed.

The Museum will give you 60% of what a collector would, but you can give them loads of items.

Artefacts are bankable.

Plus, with the release of Archaeology, players will get an additional 50 Bank spaces.

“95% of the time, the materials you get from the spot you get the artefact are what you need to restore that artefact. You go to a bench at the guild or site entrance, do restoration and get the amount of XP.” ~ Mod Timbo

Mod Rowley added:

"There are a number of artefacts that have very specific individual value as well. Those are things that we want players to discover as they play. Keep an eye out when you restore something, maybe it has a specific use elsewhere in the skill and you might not want to hand it in straight away." ~ Mod Rowley

Levelling

By levelling up the Archaeology skill, you’ll be able to visit new dig sites as well as opening up more excavation sites at locations you’ve already visited.

These aren’t small areas, either, featuring loot chests full of new materials, and puzzles to tackle. Though finding and restoring artefacts is still the main objective on these dig sites, there’s a wealth of history and lore that you can discover by exploring the dig sites.

Archaeology has 120 levels from launch, with free-to-play players able to skill all the way up to level 20.

The skill has been designed with non-linear gameplay. You can either stay at one dig site and work through all the tasks available, or you can move location to location exploring

"It's a gathering and production skill in one,the vast majority of XP you get from the skill is from restoring artefacts. Yes, you'll get a decent amount of XP from excavating but if you do excavation only, you'll be levelling very slowly. Or making a tonne of money from materials!" ~ Mod Timbo

Qualifications

There’s a lot to take in with the Archaeology skill. Qualifications, such as the various diplomas you can earn, require you to master the various aspects of the new skill. Not only that, they mean you can hire in extra staff to do work for you. You can only do this once you’ve worked your way up the ladder yourself, but when you do you can set your researchers to work and then go off on your merry way elsewhere!

Research is unlocked at Archaeology level 40.

You have the option to send your researchers away from anywhere between one hour and 24 hours (the results are the same either way - the flexibility just makes it more convenient for you!).

Some researchers come with special traits and will speed up progress on various tasks.

"Qualifications effectively are meta-achievements, to get you to explore lots of different aspects of the skill, not just racing for 120 by doing excavation and restoration. You have to try a little bit of this, that and the other, get your qualification and then the system would let you unlock." ~ Mod Rowley

Rewards

There’s more information coming in a future rewards-focused stream. There’s a new 120 Skill Cape, which features a revised logo from that shown at RuneFest. That’s on top of the stylish Elite Skilling Cape which provides a number of bonuses, such as the ability to teleport to various dig sites in addition to XP boosts and higher success rate with soil.

And don't forget the Archaeology skill pet, Archie who is described as “something of a mummy’s boy”!

“The Completionist Cape has a grace period on it but it still requires level 99. On launch, you will lose the Completionist and Trim Capes. As soon as you get 99 back, if the grace period is still active, you will then be able to wear your Comp and your Trim. Then for the Master Quest Cape, there's a very high Archaeology requirement to complete them. For that reason, because it is a lot of time, that has a six-month grace period.” ~ Mod Iago

The RuneScape Team