5,000-year-old stone tool found in UK is as ‘rare as hens’ teeth’, experts say

Upon passing glance, it looks like an ordinary boulder.

Upon further inspection, the craggy, moss-covered stone still looks unremarkable — like something you might encounter along any woodland trail or rural roadside.

But to the trained eye, the stone — recently found in South Dorset, England — is indeed something amazing. It is an ancient and rare tool once used by the Neolithic inhabitants of Britain, according to a news release from Past Participate, an archaeological nonprofit.

Archaeologists stumbled upon the tool, which dates back 5,000 years, while looking for sarsen stones, sandstone blocks used to build Stonehenge that are found throughout the country. It is “as rare as (hens’) teeth.”

“My colleagues Dr. Anne Teather and Jim Rylatt walked over the site, and Jim, an expert in lithic and landscape archaeology, spotted it,” Hayley Roberts, a community archaeology manager at Past Participate, told McClatchy News on July 18. “He had removed some leaf debris from the dish and revealed the polished surface.”

The boulder, known as a polissoir, is distinguished by one smooth side, which would have been used to polish stone axes.

“The axes would have been repeatedly rubbed over the surface,” Roberts said.

These sharpened axes would have been employed to fell trees, which would be used to build homes and other structures.

“Several examples of portable polissoirs have been found but there are only a handful that have been found on larger, ‘earth-fast’, stones such as ours,” archaeologists said.

Only a single comparable polissoir is known to exist. Located in Avebury, a village in southern England, it was excavated in the 1960s.

Once they located the exceedingly rare rock, the archaeologists said they split a celebratory bottle of whiskey.

“This is a hugely exciting chance for us to learn about an important part of life 5000 years ago,” they said in a Facebook post.

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