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Three eld ago , a then-6 - year - old male child list Ben find a strange careen on a beach in Sussex , England . He took it home , but then lost track of it . Now , the objective has been key for what it really is : a 50,000 - year - oldNeanderthalhand ax .
WhenJames Sainsbury , curator of archaeology and societal history at Worthing Theatres and Museum , received an e-mail from Ben ’s mother about her son ’s find , he did n’t expect the object to be anything limited , Sainsbury separate Live Science .
Ben is now 9 years old and a true fan of archaeology.
" I get emails like this all the sentence , especially about beach finds , and they ’re normally just pebble that look funny , " he said . " But as soon as I ensure the photograph , I mean , ' That ’s an Upper Paleolithic Neanderthal bridge player ax . ' It ’s an absolutely incredible find . "
Neanderthal mitt axes are relatively pocket-sized and dark two - sided Flint River , which make them placeable , according to Sainsbury . They ’re clearly distinct from the Middle or Lower Paleolithic find in Sussex . Neanderthals used these puppet for activities such as break bones to suck out the marrow .
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Ben holds the Neanderthal hand ax at Worthing Theatres and Museum.
Sainsbury specifically identified the artifact as a Mousterian hand ax , meaning " it ’s from that very late Neanderthal period when their days were really numbered in Europe and Britain . " He summate that some scholars even suggest that Mousterian hand axes were made by thelast Neanderthalgenerations in that area .
" As far as Sussex is concerned , it ’s really quite rarified , " Sainsbury said . " In our museum , we have one exemplar and one only . They ’re exceedingly rare because presumptively theNeanderthal population density was very modest . "
On Nov. 24 , Ben and his household brought the artefact to the Worthing Museum , where Sainsbury confirmed that it was , in fact , a Neanderthal ax . Because of how " fresh " and undamaged it take care , he suspect the artifact had been buried safely submerged for most of its chronicle .
A close-up photo of the 50,000-year-old hand ax.
" It ’s very unlikely it would have made it onto shoring , at that height on the beach , without it being damage , " he explained . " So I think it was work in with tons of shingles to increase the beach defence either from the English Channel , where it would have been dredge from an old riverbed that ’s now overwhelm , or from the North Sea , in the area of Doggerland . "
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Doggerland is a now - overwhelm regionbeneath the North Sea that was inhabited by prehistorical mass before the dry land was deluge by rising sea levels about 8,000 old age ago . Sainsbury and his Centennial State - actor are still investigating when the last batch of pebble was deposited on Shoreham beach .
" Ben is 9 now and really knew his stuff — his Bronze Age from his Iron Age from hisRomans , " Sainsbury said . " He understandably has a literal interest group inarchaeology . "
Ben lend the hand ax to Worthing Theatres and Museum , and Sainsbury had it on display just an hour after meeting with Ben ’s kinfolk . It will remain there until February , and the conservator was happy to describe that it has already been attracting more visitors than usual .
