A stroll in the woods led Morden's Rudy Ens to find what he believes is an ancient artifact. He was walking through his small parcel of land on the northwest corner of Morden on what he describes as "virgin land" that is basically untouched where deer like to walk through, when he made his discovery.

"I happened to glance down where I was standing on this deer path, and there was an unusual shaped stone, which I really didn't think anything of. I was going to pick it up and actually chuck it aside because it seemed like it shouldn't be there. As I picked it up though, something caused me to take a better look at it, 'cause it had a very unusual shape to it, and I just rotated it in my hand and it seemed to fall into place. And that's when I realized I was actually holding an ancient artifact."

Ens shares what he believes his discovery was used for.

"And they call these things a man ax, which is a tool to extend your arm into an ax. Later, when I took a good hard look at it, I realized, okay, this thing could be rotated and used as a cutting tool also, so a combination man ax/cutting tools. But what really, really amazed me was the quality of the workmanship. It was just so intricately cut and finished. You got to remember, that whoever made this tool, it's from an era where other tools do not exist."

 

Ens comments on its authenticity.

"I'm not sure who could authenticate, or that we could find out what truly is this. Is this an aboriginal item or is it truly Stone Age? When you go online, they show similar tools, not nearly as beautifully finished as this, you know, much more crude looking. They've found similar tools like this in France as an example, and they say this is a Neanderthal item. I don't think Neanderthals were in this part of the world, at least, I've never heard of it, but you just never know. How do you date something like this right? It could be hundreds of years old, but it could also be many, many thousands of years old."

Ens has shared this item with a few people like family and friends to see what they think of it.

"I think they totally agree with my logic. At first, they look at it and (say) 'It's just a stone.' and 'What made you pick it up? It's just a stone?' but when you really, really look at the way it fits, you know it's absolutely a man-made object and it's absolutely beautifully worked. It's an amazing thing, actually."

We reached out to the Manitoba Museum to look at these pictures and to comment on them. Curator of Archeology, Kevin Brownlee talked with us about what he saw in the pictures submitted by Ens.

“It's a bit of a coarser rough stone,” explained Brownlee in an interview with PembinaValleyOnline. “Stone tools tend to be made out of things we would call chert, which tend to be really sort of almost, smooth surface when they're freshly broken and this is not bad. However, people long ago were using all kinds of stone when they were making their tools, and this one appears to have been, sort of, chipped on two surfaces, and so we would call it bifacially, but basically to make a cutting edge or a scraping edge on the edge of this tool.”

Brownlee noted, in the pictures Ens submitted, you can see his hand and how he holds the tool is how it would have been held in the past.

“A tool like this would have been used for a variety of different purposes, everything from helping to cut and butcher an animal, perhaps scraping a hide or softening the hide, even some rough wood work as well,” he added. “These are sort of multifunction tools, and when we go back in time and we start thinking about how life would have been, having tools that served many functions are the best designed ones.”

So just how old could this tool be?

“I'll be pretty general on that, the design of many stone tools changed very little with time, and this would be one of those,” said Brownlee. “This one almost looks like it would be an expedient, or like quickly fashioned tool that may be used for the purpose and then discarded. It's not really finely finished, and a tool like this certainly would have been used prior to Europeans arriving, so we know it's likely older than 300 years, and beyond that really difficult to tell. Because tools like this could have been manufactured and used 500 years ago or 1000 years ago or 5000 years ago. It's not something really typical, so we tend to look at other tools from the same site, or same area, to give a sense of how old something like that was. If there was a spear point or an arrowhead, or maybe some pottery found, we might have a better idea of giving it a bit of an age, but at this point you know certainly before Europeans arrived, stone tool used for probably a variety of purposes.”

You can listen to our full interview with Brownlee below: