Brooklyn Rolph, a biology student at Mary Baldwin University in Virginia, made an unexpected discovery while looking for shark teeth. On September 21, the final day of a class field trip, she found a stone spearpoint on an island off Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The trip gave students an opportunity to study coastal plants and animals.
After lunch, Rolph went to explore a pile of shells and noticed the object at the edge of an inlet, a narrow area of water extending into the land. She immediately alerted the professors leading the trip, who were excited by the discovery. Biology professor Paul Callo said the rising tide would soon have covered it.
The stone point measures about 6 inches, or 15 centimeters, and is estimated to be around 4,500 years old. Local archaeologists, experts who study objects from the past, identified it as a Lehigh/Koens-Crispin point. Indigenous people along the US East Coast made this type between about 4,500 and 3,000 years ago, and it may also have served as a knife.
Because the island is part of a state-owned natural area, the object belongs to Virginia. Archaeologists collected it from the university group and took it to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources for further study.
