For three years, Ben Witten kept a shiny rock in his room that he picked up on Shoreham Beach never expecting that he held a truly precious object.
Coincidentally, he went to the Worthing Museum for a Stone Age exhibition which exhibited items that closely resembled what he thought to be just a cool-looking rock on the shore.
“I just thought it looked different to all the different pebbles and stones,” he told BBC. Furthermore, he couldn’t seem to hold onto it as it kept disappearing, even, in his room.
Luckily, he attended the show at the museum, so his family contacted the museum curator, James Sainsbury, who wasn’t expecting much. It wasn’t the first time that he got an email about a beach find, he said to Live Science.
But upon closer inspection, it turned out to be nothing short of the real thing: a rare Neanderthal axe from a significant moment in the hominin’s history, making it the second ever found in Sussex.
The second Mousterian hand ax ever found in Sussex
The pristine condition of the ax led museum curator James Sainsbury to suspect that it had been protected underwater for thousands of years. But Ben spotted it on the beach and had the wherewithal to identify it as an object to keep. How did it get there?
First, once Sainsbury saw the photograph, he recognized it immediately as an expert as Neanderthal axes have a distinct shape: small and dark two-sided flints, he explained to Live Science. He invited Ben and his family to the museum, so he could study it further.
Furthermore, and even more astoundingly, this unassuming stone is not just any ax, but a Mousterian hand ax used to smash bones to extract the nutritious bone marrow. This tool, in particular, dates back to a special moment in their history just before they famously faded out of existence.
“it’s from that very late Neanderthal period when their days were really numbered in Europe and Britain,” Sainsbury said Live Science.
He continued that the extremely rare Neanderthal ax was in such a “fresh” and undamaged state, that it couldn’t have even washed up to shore.
“Ben found the flint axe in the upper shingle at Shoreham beach, so it is very difficult to say with confidence whether the axe was originally lost there or whether it was dredged up from offshore river deposits during work to strengthen the beach defenses,” Sainsbury stated in a Facebook post.
The Neanderthal ax on loan until February
Ben agreed to loan his priceless find to the Worthing Theatres and Museum so they could put it on display until February. And the young boy’s finding is even attracting more visitors.
“A huge congratulations to Ben,” the museum concluded on Facebook,” for both the find itself which is so rare that most qualified archaeologists would never find one themselves and reporting it!”
Because one only example of its kind had ever been unearthed in Sussex before as their Neanderthal population was always thought to be insignificant. Ben not only uncovered an impossible old ax, but one of the only examples ever found in the area. Congratulation indeed.
“He really knew he stuff,” Sainsbury said to Live Science.
“They said it’s their best find in ten years,” Ben said to BBC.