Chelsea Dean, a Fairfield Ludlowe High School student, found an ancient spearhead more than 4,000 years old while taking part in a dig in Redding with a Norwalk Community College archaeology class.
Photo credit: Contributed by Madeline K. Barillo at Norwalk Community College

NORWALK, Conn. – A 4,000-year-old spearhead was found by a high school student taking part in an archaeology program at Norwalk Community College.

Chelsea Dean, an 18-year-old senior at Fairfield Ludlowe High School, took "Introduction to Archaeology" during the fall 2011 semester and dug at an excavation site in Redding on a weekly class trip.

And during the last day of the excavation season, Dean found a spearpoint made of white quartz, according to Professor Ernest Wiegand, coordinator of the college's "Archaeology as an Avocation" program.

“I found a projectile point that is between 4,000 and 5,000 years old,” Dean said in a statement from the college. “It’s like an arrowhead. The section I was working on had a lot of stuff coming up, but nothing was complete. When the actual projectile point came up, it was the first intact artifact I found.”

“It’s the first one of this type found at the Redding site," Wiegand added. "It dates to somewhere around 2,000 or 1,800 B.C. and may be even older than that."

Dean is continuing her archaeology studies. 

“One of the things I learned taking the course is that I want to continue with archaeology, whether it’s a career or recreational,” Dean said. “It can be tedious and tiring working at digs - and you get sore because you are sitting at weird angles - but I think it’s really rewarding.”