N.B. woman finds out 'necklace' dates back 10,000 years
Wore spearhead as jewelry for 7 years before discovering its age
Last Updated: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 | 11:31 AM AT
CBC News
A New Brunswick archeologist is planning a dig next spring on the province's east coast after a woman found out the spearhead she had been wearing as a necklace is 10,000 years old.
Joan Rennick found the spearhead seven years ago at — appropriately — Cape Spear, which is about 50 kilometres east of Moncton.
'I put it in a little bracket and wore it around my neck for the last seven years.'-Joan Rennick
"We were walking the beach. I looked down, and there it was," she said.
Rennick thought the spearhead — which is about 13 centimetres long and made of a dark rock — would make a nice piece of jewelry.
"I put it in a little bracket and wore it around my neck for the last seven years," she said.
Earlier this year, Rennick saw a similar-looking spearhead on a National Geographic show and started to understand how old it could be.
She contacted Brent Suttie, an archeologist for the province of New Brunswick. Suttie examined it and told her it was almost 10,000 years old.
He plans to visit the area next spring.
"We may be able to find an intact site there," he said. "We'd be able to garner so much more information, like what they were eating [10,000 years ago], how their tents were laid out … all these kinds of things we didn't know before."
Rennick still wears the spearhead on a necklace, which is fine with Suttie.
"Obviously, if an archeologist found it, it would get treated quite a bit differently," he said. "But where it's an individual who found it, it's essentially their property. We're just glad she brought it to our attention."
