Virginia Boy: Ancient Clovis Find Donated to Smithsonian Museum

A 10-year-old Virginia boy who found an ancient Clovis did the right thing and donated the find to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History on Monday. Noah Cordle found the Clovis point near the edge of the surf in Beach Haven on Long Beach Island in August.

The Clovis is a hunting tool used by early Americans thousands of years ago. What Noah found was about the length of his palm and the color of charcoal.

The museum wrote:

Yesterday, Noah, who is 10 years old and lives in Fairfax, Virginia, visited the National Museum of Natural History to meet with archaeologists and donate his finding, which experts say is a Clovis point. The museum has several hundred in its collection – one of which was discovered as far back as the 1870s – but Noah’s is the first one to join the collection from New Jersey. “You can lay out Clovis points from one end to the other, from California and now New Jersey, and look at them and study them side by side,” says Pegi Jodry, a curator in the museum’s archaeology department. She says the museum will make a cast of Noah’s point for him.

Dennis Stanford, the Smithsonian’s expert in Paleoindian archaeology and stone tool technology said, that the artifact is “a classic Clovis point”, dating from 13,500 to 14,000 years ago and made of a silicate, probably jasper.

Noah is in the fifth grade and says his favorite school subject is science. He’s a fan of ancient artifacts.

Image Credit: Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History