Students discover 6,000-year-old stone ax at Mount Vernon

About 6,000 years ago, a precious stone ax that had been skillfully carved and shaped by Native Americans was lost on a ridge overlooking the Potomac River in Virginia. The ax, about 7 inches long, had been hewed and smoothed and was narrowed at one end where a wooden handle attached. Its loss must have been keenly felt.

Six millennia later, on Oct. 12, Dominic Anderson and Jared Phillips, both 17, were on a high school archaeological dig at George Washington’s estate at Mount Vernon, when a stone that looked like a big potato turned up in their sifting screen. Not sure what it was, they asked the Mount Vernon archaeologists working nearby.

It turned out to be the ax, missing for 60 centuries.

Officials at Mount Vernon announced details of the find Wednesday and said it takes the story of the site far beyond its place as the home of the first president of what would become the United States.

It “provides a window onto the lives of individuals who lived here nearly 6,000 years ago,” said Sean Devlin, Mount Vernon’s curator of archaeological collections. “Artifacts such as this are a vital resource for helping us learn about the diverse communities who shaped this landscape throughout its long history.”