A walk on the beach led a woman to discover an ancient spearhead that could be an important part of history.
While taking a walk along the beach in Seaside Heights, Audrey Stanick, 58, found a rare spearhead while looking for sea glass along the shore with her sister. Experts said that the ancient artifact may hold clues into the lives of early humans.
"I noticed it because it was very dark and shiny, and my sister ... taught me to always look out for dark and shiny things at the beach," Stanick said. She then remembered the story of a discovery of a historical artifact last year in the area so she contacted the museum.
The spearhead was then analyzed by the curators from the New Jersey State Museum. The artifact, which curators estimated to be at least 10,000 years old, came from the Paleo-Indian period. Spears like these were used by semi-nomadic natives, made from sharpened stone that are then used to hunt animals.
"There are actually professional excavations to try and find points like these, so to be along the shore and see it washed up is pretty incredible," said the museum's assistant curator Dr. Gregory Lattanzi. He also said that this rare find will help experts be able to find possible areas of settlements located in the ocean as well as in rivers and other bodies of water.
For now, Stanick is still in possession of the piece, saying that if she does decide to donate the artifact, it will most likely go to the local museum, reasoning that she found it in New Jersey, where she lived, so the artifact rightfully belongs to the community.
She added that the find has piqued her interest in finding ancient artifacts and would love to take part on a dig if possible in the future.
Last year, while walking at the beach, Noah Cordle, 10, found an arrowhead called a Clovis point. But without his glasses, he thought it was just a shark tooth or a common rock. His parents, though initially skeptical, saw that the specimen looked like a real arrowhead and, after some research, found striking resemblance to the "rock" and the Clovis point arrowheads discovered.
The arrowhead found by the Cordles was then confirmed by the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History to be the real thing. The family ended up donating the arrowhead to the museum.
"It's actually pretty spectacular to have something that a place like the Smithsonian would actually want," Brian Cordle, Noah's father, said. "That's more cool than anything. I don't even know what it's worth financially, but I know it's not much compared to the excitement of all this."
