An artifact from 3,700 years ago was found in Norway by an eight-year-old girl. Elise was playing close to her school when she found a dagger (a type of knife) from the Stone Age in a rocky area, in the county of Vestland.

When she noticed the object was unusual, Elise took it to her teacher, Karen Drange, who observed that the dagger seemed ancient, contacted Vestland’s board, and engaged the area’s archeologists.

Louise Bierre Peterson was the professional responsible for identifying the object as a prehistoric dagger. In the county’s official statement, the object has been described as 12 centimeters long and made from flint, a sedimentary rock (which forms from the natural fusion of other rocky fragments).

Flint was often used by hunters to make weapons starting from the Paleolithic age. However, the rock does not form naturally in Norway, which for the researchers pointed to the possibility that the dagger came from somewhere else.

Object’s Destination

The dagger will now remain in the University Museum in the Norwegian town of Bergen. According to the website Live Science and based on the characteristics of the artifact, the dagger might belong to the Neolithic age, when hunting and gathering tools and items made out of rocks were very important for human development.

Glossary

Stone Age: pre-historic phase when humans started to develop tools made from rocks. It is divided in the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. In the Paleolithic period (between 2.5 million and 12 thousand years before Christ – B.C.) human activities included hunting, fishing, gathering, and the discovery of fire. In the Neolithic (7 thousand to 2500 B.C.) humans began to develop agriculture and become settled.

Sources: Brasil Escola, Canal Tech, Live Science, Galileu magazine, and The Science Times

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