Two Akron high school students on an archeological dig on the grounds of George Washington's Virginia home discovered an artifact that preceded the first president by several millenia.
Archbishop Hoban High School seniors Dominic Anderson and Jared Phillips were helping map the dimensions of what's believed to be a cemetery for slaves and their descendants when they found the carefully crafted axe head, estimated to be 6,000 years old. Mount Vernon's curator of archaeological collections, Sean Devlin, says the axe was dated by comparing it to other tools and looking at the methods of construction. The 3- by 7-inch stone axe head was of a style used to cut or carve wood, rather than as a weapon. It is the oldest of the 50,000 artifacts that have been discovered at Mount Vernon.
