One Chicken’s Discovery
For a bird, she wasn't a bad scientist.
Lumpy passed the time doing what all free-roaming chickens do—scratching the soil to search for her favorite snacks: crunchy potato-beetle grubs.
Lumpy was a Rhode Island Red hen. She lived near the Delaware River, on Barbara Yeaman’s and Ed Wesely’s farm in Pennsylvania.
“Of all the chickens we’ve had over the years, Lumpy was our favorite,” said Ed Wesely. “She got her name because of the lump on her neck, probably an injury caused by a hungry fox or raccoon.”
One day, scratching in the herb garden, she found more than grubs. She found treasure.
A Stone out of Place
Lumpy dug up a dark-gray pointed stone with her bright-yellow feet.
“I know she dug up the pointed stone because that September day I happened to be in the herb garden, too,” said Ed.
Ed noticed the stone immediately because it was not reddish-brown shale like other stones on the farm. It was dark-gray argillite (ARE-jill-light), almost two inches long, and flat—a perfect skipping stone. It had tiny shiny flakes and a milky-white spot that could be seen only through a magnifying glass. And the stone had a pointed tip.
Where had it come from? Did an Ice Age glacier leave it behind? Did the river wash it ashore?
What’s the Point?
Ed and Barbara sent a photograph of the stone to Joe Baker, who is an archaeologist. Mr. Baker said that Lumpy had found a spearpoint made by prehistoric people about four thousand years ago, before bows and arrows were in use in Pennsylvania.
Lumpy’s pointed stone was left behind by people—not by floods or glaciers.
To make a spearpoint, one rock was used to hammer against a second rock, chipping away until the second rock became pointed. Prehistoric people used spear-points to catch fish and hunt wild animals.
But how did an argillite spearpoint end up in a land of red shale?
Prehistoric people traveled and traded. Family groups of 20 or 50 trekked miles through wet, warm forests of oak and hemlock. They searched for hunting grounds and for others willing to trade.
Perhaps Lumpy’s point was made of argillite from southern Pennsylvania. A traveler may have found it or traded for it. Maybe a prehistoric boy lost the spearpoint while hunting. Then—four thousand years later—the argillite treasure with tiny shiny flakes and one milky-white spot was found by a sweet Rhode Island Red named Lumpy.
