Most trips to the beach yield nothing more than a shoe full of sand and a few broken shells; Lucky beachgoers might find an unbroken sand dollar. Ten-year-old Noah Cordle of Springfield, Virginia, however, found a 10,000-year-old arrowhead while visiting Long Beach Island with his family, the Asbury Park Press reports.
Last week, the arrow clunked against Noah’s leg as he stood at the edge of the surf in Beach Haven. It was still sharp enough to hurt.
“I thought it was a crab,” Noah said.
When he picked up the pointy, black, 2.5-inch object, he figured he better show it to his parents, Andrea and Brian Cordle. His 6-year-old sister, Natalie, was unimpressed. But his parents were excited.
His mother contacted Greg Lattanzi, president of the Archaeological Society of New Jersey and assistant curator of the archeology and ethnography bureau of the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton.
“I was basically blown away,” Lattanzi said. “Finding these points is rare.”
How rare? The State Museum maintains a collection of about 20 to 25 Paleoindian points, but most were unearthed by professionals at archaeological digs.
“Only one other one recorded had washed up on a beach,” he said, “on Island Beach State Park in ’94 or ’95.”
Agencies/Canadajournal
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