AN 11-year-old boy from Barnoldswick has shed more light on the area's past after finding a neolithic axe head.

Jordan Green, of Gill Meadows, was out with his father Chris and younger brother when he spotted the stone in a stream off Brogdan Lane and recognised the distinctive markings as being an axe.

At first, Chris, who owns Barnoldswick Hire Centre, was unconvinced but pocketed the stone and sent details of it to the British Museum's neolithic curator Gillian Varndell.

Her verdict astounded Chris the axe is 6,000 years old and the stone comes from the Lake District.

Chris said: "It was literally just in a stream. My boys were skimming stones and one picked it up and said I think it's an axe head'.

"I picked it up, put it in my pocket and when I got home I thought yeah this is something'.

"It's only a fragment, it's a broken axe head. It's so symmetrical you couldn't mistake it. It was obviously man-made.

"I sent details to the British Museum and they confirmed it was Neolithic and 6,000 years old.

"They gave us a lot of background. It's a grey-green stone and they said it came from the Lake District.

"They even pin-pointed it down to where it was quarried. It's amazing."

It is thought stone for the axe head came from Great Langdale in the Lake District and originally it would have had a handle.

The discovery is Ermysted's Grammar School pupil Jordan's first foray into amateur archaeology.

Chris said: "We watch Time Team but we've never found anything before, no treasure or anything.

"I can't believe how he realised what it was. I don't know whether he's done things like that at school. He seemed to know what it was.

"We've got it on the mantelpiece at the moment. We're not sure what we're going to do with it."