AN eagle-eyed schoolboy from Barnt Green has found a Stone Age tool, which could be 200,000 years old, while playing on the beach with his brothers.

Budding archaeologist, Richard Hotham, aged ten, was playing at the bottom of cliffs in St David's, Pembrokeshire, Wales, when an unusual stone caught his eye.

When his father Charles, aged 42, examined the find and compared it to others on various websites he decided to visit the County Archaeological Service, based in Worcester.

Experts revealed the stone was an edge scraper from the Palaeolithic period and used by our ancestors to cut meat from the bone.

The Hothams, of Bittell Lane, learned it was made out of a volcanic stone known as Tuff and was between 25,000 and 200,000 years old.

Mr Hotham told the Advertiser/Messenger: "Richard was just looking at the pebbles with his brothers James, 11, and Matthew, nine, and this particular one caught his eye.

"It's very exciting to find an artefact that has been on the earth for thousands of years."

The Palaeolithic period, known as the Old Stone Age, spans between 3,500,000-5,000 BC, when Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon people roamed the earth.

The family has a caravan in Wales and plan to take the tool to Pembrokeshire County Council, where it can be recorded. They do not know if they can keep it.

Richard Jones, heritage manager for Cambria Archaeology, which covers the St David's area, said: "The area is rich with archaeological finds and tools of this kind are not usually rare.

"However it's still very special for the young boy who found it because it's so old."