Archaeological find at Lough Hyne of 'national importance'

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL object recently discovered at Lough Hyne has been reported to the National Museum of Ireland by Jim O'Donnell of Ballinard. The find, a piece of worked flint, is difficult to date but thought to be about 4,000 years old.

This small piece of stone offers important information about pre-historic Lough Hyne. The first tools developed by early man were made of stone and were used in hunting, fishing, food preparation and even in making clothes. When it was available, flint was used for producing sharp tools. Flint is a very hard stone but chips easily and breaks like glass, giving a razor-sharp edge.

The creation of flint tools involved breaking, or 'knapping', small pieces of flint off a larger core piece. The resultant sharp flakes of flint were sometimes worked further by the knapper. In a process called 'retouching', the flint flake could be re-shaped, sharpened or smoothened to create a variety of tools including scrapers, arrowheads and blades.

The flint found at Lough Hyne is the remains of a core flint, one which would have been worked on, or knapped, by a skilled stone worker to create such tools. [...] southernstar.ie/