Two high school seniors from Ohio were working at an archaeological excavation in Virginia as part of a school trip when they fall across what attend like a big potato dumbfound in their sifting screen .
Upon closer investigation , the team realized their find was n’t a spud after all , but rather the stone head of a 6,000 - class - onetime Native American axe that is serve to broaden our apprehension of the outstanding chronicle of the former home base of America ’s first Chief Executive .
George Washington ’s sprawling estate of the realm , Mount Vernon , in Virginia , occupies around 172 hectares ( 425 acre ) , but its history goes back much further than the spark of the US . A resume of the estate has line up more than 100 archaeological sites over the course of 4,000 yr of dwelling house . Most lately , the tool was found along a ridgeline house to an African American burial ground oral history evoke was used for enslaved people and possibly their freed descendants .
Before then , the land was used by Virginia ’s indigenous mass as much as 80 millennium ago .
The owner of this particular puppet would have probably held it in gamy regard . Likely made of a “ green stone ” from the nearby Potomac River , the ax ’s maker would have been a skilled journeyman during this time . It was first chip off away with a hammering Harlan Fiske Stone to make the worldwide frame and create an bound along the expression of the ax . Then , the maker would have hammered it with a unvoiced stone to smooth out the facial expression before one final smoothening with a grinding Harlan Fisk Stone . A small channel in the back of the axe would have been where a wooden handle was inserted , earmark the peter to be used to cutting or splitting wood .
“ The ax provides a window onto the lives of individuals who lived here nearly 6,000 year ago , ” said Mount Vernon ’s archeological curator Sean Devlin in astatement . “ artefact , such as this , are a lively resource for helping us see about the various communities who mould this landscape painting throughout its farseeing history . ”
Devlin tell theWashington Postother archaeological evidence indicate the site was invade for several thousand years not as a village , but as a irregular stopping point for community who move along the Potomac River . After being cataloged , Mount Vernon ’s archaeological team will tot its info to anelectronic databasebefore cleanup , preserving , and lay in it at a readiness onsite presently home to more than 50,000 artifact .
[ H / T : Washington Post ]
