A stroll along the beach lead to the discovery of an ancient artifact for one New Jersey woman: a rare spearhead that’s at least 10,000 years old, and experts believe it could hold clues about what prehistoric life might have been like in North America.
According to ABC News and NJ.com, 58-year-old Audrey Stanick of Lanoka Harbor and was out for a walk along a Seaside Heights beach on October 6 and searching for sea glass after a storm when she spotted a dark object hidden amongst a pile of broken clamshells.
She told reporters that she spotted it because her sister, who collects shark teeth, trained her to keep her eye out for dark objects. Believing she had found an arrowhead, she contacted the New Jersey State Museum, where assistant curator of archaeology and ethnography Gregory Lattanzi analyzed her find and discovered that it was from the Middle Paleoindian period.
The arrowhead, which was made from flint, has been dated to between 10,000 and 11,000 years old. Its edges have been smoothed, indicating that it spend a considerable amount of time in the ocean, and while the discover is not super rare, Lattanzi called it significant, saying it may provide new insights into the early inhabitants of New Jersey.
One of the oldest Paleo-Indian artifacts found in the state
Lattanzi told NJ.com that he was trying “to plot” this find and other like it to see whether or not they are “all from the same time period meaning possibly from the same site.” There could be “a buried site somewhere that we have to keep an eye out for,” he also told the website.
Museum officials are uncertain how the artifact wound up on the Jersey shore. It may have been unearthed by recent beach replenishment, which gathers sand from the ocean floor and places it on the beach. One such project is taking place on Long Beach Island, south of Seaside Heights. Alternatively, it might have been uncovered during the storm that preceded its discovery.
Regardless, Lattanzi called it one of the oldest artifacts he had seen from the Paleo-Indian period, telling ABC News that the spearhead was probably used by semi-nomadic natives who kept such stones sharp to hunt deer and caribou. Because of all the work required to make an artifact like this, they were passed down from one generation to the next, he added.
For now, Stanick said that she intends to keep the spearhead, which she said she currently has in her purse so she can show it to others. “If I do ever end up donating it,” she added, “I want to donate it to a New Jersey museum because I found it here and it belongs here. But for now, I’m going to keep it. Trust me, these places have a lot of artifacts, and I don’t think they’re going to miss mine.”
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Feature Image: New Jersey State Museum
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