Stone axe from Maiden's Hall. Photo Northumberland County Council, 1996.

Between 4000 and 6000 years ago, during what archaeologists call the Neolithic period, someone made an axe head by chipping flakes from a lump of stone from Langdale in Cumbria and polishing it until it was smooth. When the axe head had been used for a while, it became blunt and was re-sharpened. The axe head was found in 1996 by workers at Maiden's Hall open cast coal mine, East Chevington.