9,000 Year-Old Axe Unearthed at Culmore
Submitted by PaulM on Saturday, 30 August 2003 Page Views: 1660
DiscoveriesAn exciting archaeological discovery has been made at Culmore in Derry by two men who stumbled across a large stone artefact, which pre-dates the Egyptian Pyramids by a few thousand years.When Frank Gillespie began work on his garden wall in Culmore he had little idea that just below his feet lay a large stone axe estimated to be around 8-9,000 years-old.
Frank's father Hugh Gillespie, of Lone Moor Road, had been digging the foundation for the wall when he unearthed the ancient tool.
"My father found it and left it to one side, paying little notice, but when I spotted it I knew it was some kind of artefact as it was chipped from work," said Frank (38).
"We were in the back garden digging a foundation for a small wall at the time - we weren't looking for anything," added the electronics engineer.
The Clonliffe Park resident said that the future of the axe will now be left in the hands of the local archaeologists, Ian Leitch and Tommy Gallagher, who investigated and verified the find.
"The axe probably dates from the early or late Mesolithic period in Ireland, around eight or nine thousand years ago," Mr. Leitch told the 'Journal'.
The discovery of stone axes has not been uncommon in recent times with a number of artefacts uncovered during field surveying in the Culmore and Ballyamagard areas over the last number years.
However, the large axe unearthed by the Gillespies was "unique" to the area because of its size, according to the local archaeologists.
And the artefact dates back to when Ireland's earliest settlers were still arriving in Northern Ireland from Scotland.
Mr. Leitch and Mr. Gallagher have confirmed that the artefact is made of "mud stone", and it was probably used by early hunter-gatherers for felling trees. The sharp stone would have been "hafted" onto a piece of timber , most likely oak, using animal hide.
"This particular stone axe may have been brought into the area through local trading, as this stone axe has no similarity, on record, to other stone axes, which have been found in the locality," said Mr. Leitch.
Frank and Hugh Gillespie permitted the axe to be handed over to the Environment and Heritage Services of the Department of the Environment which will observe and record the find.
"The axe will in due course be returned to Mr. Gillespie who may at some stage facilitate the axe being viewed publicly at the Tower Museum in Derry," added Mr. Leitch, who paid tribute to the Gillespies for passing the artefact to the authorities .
In January a find of ancient tools dating from the same period during the building of the Toome bypass yielded one of the most important insights to date into the lifestyles of the first Irish settlers.
That site included a number of flint tools thought also to be around 9,000 years old and yielded over 8,000 pieces of flint including small blades called microliths and larger tools used for hunting, and fishing.
It is believed that the first humans to reach Ireland did so as the remnants of the last Ice Age disappeared. The first immigrants came to the Antrim coast from western Europe via Scotland, with which there may have been temporary dry land connections left behind by the Ice Age.
Source: icDerry.com 30 August 2003
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