NCC student finds artifact in archaeological dig

NORWALK -- The archaeology program at Norwalk Community College has unearthed a 4,000-year-old spearhead in a backyard in Redding.

"It's like an arrowhead," said Chelsea Dean, 18, of Fairfield, who discovered the artifact while digging for an introduction course in archaeology.

"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."

Professor Ernest Wiegand, who directs the archaeology program, said the white quartz spearhead is the first of its kind to be discovered in Redding, dating to somewhere between 2,000 or 1,800 B.C.

"It may even be older than that," he said.

The artifact is known as a Burwell projectile point, based on the work of archaeologist Lucianne Lavin and Lyent Russell at the Burwell-Karako site near New Haven.

It dates to the Late Archaic period and has been found associated with other point types of the "Narrow Point" tradition in Connecticut...

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