Developments in Brief : 2,800-Year-Old Cutting Tool Is Found Intact

Researchers in Washington have found a cutting tool believed to be 2,800 years old that is the only such piece ever found intact in the Western Hemisphere.

The quartz crystal artifact was found at a dig at a 3,000-year-old Indian village at the mouth of the Hoko River, said Dale Croes of Washington State University.

“These blades are of real interest because they’re very sharp, and very specialized tools. I’m not sure, but my guess is that it was used by the West Coast Indians to carefully cut leather--hides and skins that were still wet. I could cut through them like butter.”

This is the first time such a blade has been found complete with a handle, he said. It is about an inch long with a six-inch cedar handle bound with cherry bark. The blade, discovered last week by a Washington State student, is about one-fourth of an inch wide and one-sixteenth of an inch thick.

Obsidian blades dating back 14,000 years have been found in Siberia and Alaska. Quartz showed up about 5,000 years ago, Croes said. He believes the blade was made somewhere else and brought to the Hoko River site.