WHILE many young girls spend their spare time playing with dolls or dressing up, this youngster enjoys getting her hands dirty – and may have unearthed a 10,000-year-old relic in the process.
Adventurous Maddy Carlier, eight, had lost her favourite piece of flint in her back garden and was searching for it when she came across a similar, shiny artefact sitting in the gravel.
The schoolgirl, who is a pupil at St Martin's School, in Dorking, said she was curious about the remnant's razor-like edges, and was testing its sharpness against the garden fence when she was noticed by her dad Geoff.
"I was scraping the paint off and he spotted me and I thought he was going to get very cross at me," said Maddy.
"But then he stopped and looked at it closer and said he thought it might be a really, really old spearhead.
"We went inside and looked it up on the internet and it really looked like spearheads from 10,000 years ago so I was really excited. I like pieces of flint so I am really proud I found it."
She continued: "I took it into school and showed all my friends and they said it was really cool. It is really amazing that it might be so old.
"It is on the mantelpiece now but I might let Dorking Museum have it for a little bit, but not forever because I want it back. I found it so it is only fair if I can keep it."
After the youngster found the flint, Maddy's dad Geoff took the relic to an amateur archaeologist, who believes it could be from the Mesolithic Age, which dates from about 9600 to 5000 BC.
Mr Carlier said: "It is really quite fascinating, and it makes you think about how Dorking must have looked all those years ago. It is definitely a Stone Age implement of some sort.
"My friend has been on many digs before and is pretty convinced that it is Mesolithic, and that it is probably a spearhead or from a pick of some sort."
He added: "It has certainly started making Maddy think. She is a real creative writer and has started writing stories about where it came from."
