A dumper driver from Suffolk has found a nearly 60,000-year-old prehistoric handaxe on his tea break.
Colin Cooley, 57, from Otley, works on an excavation site at the Sizewell C nuclear power plant in the county.
OXFORD COTSWOLD ARCHAEOLOGY
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Colin Cooley said ‘all hell broke loose’ when it emerged he had stumbled across the ancient weapon
“It was a normal day at work and we’d just finished our tea break,” Cooley said.
“I was on my way back to the dumper, kicking my feet, and I thought: ‘Hang on, that looks like an axehead.’
“I handed it in to one of the archaeologists… A little while later, they ran up to me and said: ‘Colin, Colin, you’ve found an axehead.’
“Then all hell broke loose, everyone got excited over the find, because one hadn’t been found for ages.”
Hadley Sharman, one of the researchers working at Sizewell, labelled it a “blinder” of a find.
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OXFORD COTSWOLD ARCHAEOLOGY
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Archaeologist Hadley Sharman labelled it a ‘blinder’ of a find
Writing for Oxford Cotswold Archaeology’s blog, Sharman detailed exactly what had been unearthed.
The handaxe weighs just 166g, and is 11cm tall and 8cm at its widest.
Sharman wrote that it “has developed a mesmerising cloudy cream patina from millennia of gradual chemical reactions”.
“On one side, you can see a tantalising blue horizon gaze through the patina, giving us a clue as to the colour of the handaxe when it was fresh,” he continued.
“Although archaeologists describe it as a handaxe, it is more of prehistoric Swiss Army knife.
“It could be used to chop wood like modern-day axes, but also butchering animals, cutting plant fibres, and even for digging – all daily activities for people living in Suffolk over 36,000 years ago.”
Dumper driver Cooley is also a keen detectorist, which he revealed had helped hone his eye for artefacts.
He had also previously discovered a rare Byzantine pilgrim souvenir.
“I’m a fisherman as well, it’s the hunt, that’s all it is to me, the hunt,” he added. “It doesn’t matter what you find, you’re chasing it all the time.
“Hopefully, one day I’ll find some gold coins, but you never know.”
