Neolithic Flint Retouched Flake Find

Some 4,500 years ago, one of our distant ancestors—perhaps having just finished skinning an animal—set down this flint tool for the very last time. And there the tool remained, largely undisturbed for millennia, until last Tuesday when I was digging in the back garden.

Irish Neolithic retouched flake found in County Antrim

Confirmed as Late Neolithic or possibly Early Bronze Age by an archaeologist over the weekend, its presence in our garden ties it to two prehistoric settlements that were discovered in the mid-2000s, both within 200m of our house. Those excavations yielded substantial finds dating back almost 6,000 years, including a rare prehistoric road, a potential Early Neolithic house and an abundance of flint and pottery.

Visible knapping on this Irish Neolithic retouched flake

Known as a “retouched flake”, it would have been made from the waste material (debitage) of other tools and put to use when processing animals or possibly carving wood. It is, by quite some margin, the coolest object I have ever found.

To think of the last human hand to touch it before mine gives me goosebumps—a very real piece of Irish history, found right here in our garden.

Mind-blowing, really.