A 10-year-old boy took home an unusual souvenir after vacationing with his family on Long Beach Island, N.J., last week--a Native American arrowhead dated to around 10,000 years ago.
Noah Cordle of Virginia was standing on the shoreline when he felt a prick that turned out to be a black object around 2.5 inches long, the Asbury Park Press reported.
"I thought it was a crab," Noah said.
After Noah showed the find to his parents, Andrea and Brian Cordle, his mother got in touch with someone at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton.
Greg Lattanzi, president of the Archaeological Society of New Jersey and assistant curator of the archeology and ethnography bureau at the State Museum, told the family that Noah's discovery was extremely rare. While archaeological digs have brought back similar treasures, only one other documented arrowhead has been discovered randomly on a beach, washing up about a decade ago.
Putting the arrowhead's age between 8,000 and 11,000 years old, Lattanzi analyzed the object for its style, construction and stone type.
"Jasper is a yellow-brown stone," Lattanzi said of the arrowhead's material. "The reason why it's black is because it was buried in the sand for literally thousands of years without oxygen. In the mid-section, there is a nick, and if you look closely, it's orangey-brown."
The ancient people who made the arrows were likely pre-tribal and nomadic, migrating through the area to find food such as fish and berries, Lattanzi said.
While the Cordle family could keep Noah's find, they plan to donate the arrowhead to a museum.
"I think it's super cool that this happened," said Andrea Cordle, as quoted by the Park Press. "But it's not ours. It's for everybody. My father-in-law died recently and he collected arrowheads and my husband thinks this was from his father. We know his father would have loved to see it. And from the bottom of my soul, I feel it's meant to be seen by everybody."
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