Detail

A boy named Ben found a strange stone on a beach in Sussex, England. He took her home. He kept it with him for three years, even losing track of it at one point, but then came across it again. When James Sainsbury, curator of archeology and social history at Worthing Theater and Museum, received an email from Ben’s mother about the find, he did not expect the object to be anything special, but later realized it was a Neanderthal hand axe, Channel 24 reported. With reference to LiveScience.

I get emails like this all the time, especially about beach finds. These are often funny looking pebbles. But as soon as I saw the photo, I thought, “This is an Upper Paleolithic Neanderthal hand axe.” This is an absolutely incredible invention.
– says Sainsbury.

According to the archaeologist, Neanderthal hand axes are relatively small and dark-colored double-sided flints, making them quite recognizable. These are clearly different from Middle and Lower Palaeolithic finds in Sussex. Neanderthals used these tools in activities such as crushing bones to extract bone marrow.

Neanderthal ax / Worthing Museum photo

Sainsbury described the work as follows: Mousteria hand axe. This means it dates from a very late period when Neanderthals were nearing the end of their days in Europe and Britain. He added that some scientists even suggest that Mousteria hand axes were made by the last generation of Neanderthals in the region.

As for Sussex, that’s quite a rarity indeed. There is only one example in our museum. They are extremely rare because the population density of Neanderthals was probably very low.
– added the scientist.

On 24 November Ben and his family brought the work to Worthing Museum. There Sainsbury confirmed that it was indeed a Neanderthal axe. He suspects this because of how “fresh” and unharmed he looks For most of its history, the artifact was safely buried underwater..

“It’s unlikely it would wash ashore this far up the beach and not be damaged. That’s why I think it was brought along with tons of tiles to strengthen the beach’s defences.” [Шорхем] either from the English Channel, where it was drawn from the now flooded former riverbed, or from the North Sea in the Doggerland region,” explains the scientist.

Doggerland is a submerged region beneath the North Sea where prehistoric people lived before the land was submerged by rising sea levels about 8,000 years ago.

Me with an Axe / Photo: Emma Whitten

Sainsbury and his colleagues are still trying to find out when the last batch of pebbles fell onto Shoreham beach.

The ax is now in the museum, where it has become part of the exhibition. It will remain there at least until February.