FROM THE STONE AGE.

Shannon News, 7 February 1928, Page 3

FROM THE STONE AGE.

PREHISTORIC FLINT POUND ON WAIOPEHU. A rather astonishing discovery was made on the Waiopehu leading ridge on Saturday. This was, the finding, on the surface of the ground in the virgin' bush, only a few yards from the lint now being erected, of a primitive flint knife op cutting instrument of a type wh’ch, it would seem, can only be as cribed to the Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age. Flint is a rock quite foreign to the Tararua Range, and is in fact not found in situ in the Wellington Trov ince. Furthermore this flint knife is al most certainly not of Maori origin, Maori stone adzes and other artifact! being of the Neolithic or New Stone Age type. The Waiopehu flint knife is inches in length, 2 inches in breadth and i-ir.ch in thickness, and lia. two keen cutting edges, one on side. Reference to text books on arch neology shows that-chipped flint knivef of almost exactly similar character froir European sites have been ascribed bj experts to early Palaeolithic dates ant thus were used by prehistoric man o! from 20,000 to 40,000 years ago. Tin late Dr. Julius von Haast, one of Nov. Zealand’s most distinguished geologists always maintained'that there existed ii ' New Zealand long before the Maoris an aboriginal race whom he designate! the. Al’oa-huntcrs, and that this peopl used chipped flint knives. Dr. Yoi Haast also stated that old tradition, indicated that the Alaoris (Polynesians; exterminated the earlier native ract fAlelancsians) in New Zealand and re toned to them by names meanim •‘wild nieii of the woods.” Those wht have scon the nowly-chscovered loca. specimen are satisfied that it is a product of primitive human workmanship though how it came to the spot when found and by whom it was dropped •are questions at present not possible to answer.