A gardener weeding a raspberry patch unearths a 4,500-year-old tool in Poland. To see the

A Polish gardener discovered more than just weeds when he started working in his raspberry patch. The task revealed a 4,500-year-old tool.

Sławomir Brzozowski was pulling weeds from a raspberry field in Potok Górny when he unearthed a smooth, wedge-shaped rock, the Lublin Provincial Curator of Monuments said in a May 10 Facebook post.

Brzozowski suspected the rock might be something important and reported it to authorities after finding it in late April.

He was right. Archaeologists identified the smooth stone as a fragment of a 4,500-year-old stone axe.

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Photos show the artifact dark brown. Seen from the side, the fragment appears rectangular. When viewed from above, it appears wedge-shaped with a thinner, blade-like edge.

The ancient fragment measures about 2.5 inches in length and is believed to have been part of a larger ax measuring about 7 inches, officials said.

Based on the style of the axe, archaeologists have linked it to the globular amphora culture. This culture is a little-known group of people who lived during the late Neolithic period. Their artifacts are most commonly found in eastern Poland and Ukraine.

Brzozowski’s find is the third ax from the Globular Amphora Culture discovered in the region, officials said. These artifacts indicate that this ancient culture extended over a larger area than previously thought.

The 4,500-year-old ax will be donated to the Biłgoraj museum, authorities said.

Potok Górny is a village in southeastern Poland, about 200 miles southeast of Warsaw and near the Ukrainian border.

Google Translate was used to translate the Facebook post of the Provincial Conservator of Monuments of Lublin.

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