Stone Age 'find' goes on display

The museum does not know how the tool got to the Midlands

A Stone Age hand axe which is more than 500,000 years old has gone on display in Warwick.

The tool was found at Smiths Concrete Bubbenhall Quarry at Waverley Wood Farm near Coventry.

The axe, which is in good condition, provides evidence of our early ancestors, hominids, in the UK.

The keeper of archaeology at Warwickshire Museum's Market Hall site in Warwick, Sara Wear, says the axe is extremely rare.

She added: "Andesite, which is the volcanic rock it was made of, is either found in the Lake District or north Wales.

"So we don't know how it actually got here.

"It may have got here through natural processes, the actual original rock, rather than the finished hand axe, or it may have been the axe was made somewhere else and brought into this area."