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A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history. [1] It is made from stone, usually flint or chert that has been "reduced" and shaped from a larger piece by knapping , or hitting against another stone.
Cleavers, found in many Acheulean assemblages such as Africa, were similar in size and manner of hand axes. The differences between a hand axe and a cleaver is that a hand axe has a more pointed tip, while a cleaver will have a more transverse "bit" that consists of an untrimmed portion of the edge oriented perpendicular to the long axis of the tool.
The Saltley handaxe is a quartzite hand axe found in the gravels of the valley of the River Rea in the Saltley area of Birmingham, England in 1890. Believed to be approximately 500,000 years old, [1] it was the first human artifact from the paleolithic era found in the English Midlands, which had previously been considered not to have been inhabited before the end of the last glacial period.
Polished Neolithic jadeitite axe from the Museum of Toulouse Axe heads found at a 2700 BC Neolithic manufacture site in Switzerland, arranged in the various stages of production from left to right. In prehistoric Japan, ground stone tools appear during the Japanese Paleolithic period, that lasted from around 40,000 BC to 14,000 BC. [24]
This was struck from the lateral edge of the hand-axe close to the intended cutting area, resulting in the removal of a flake running along (parallel to) the blade of the axe to create a neat and very sharp working edge. This distinctive tranchet flake can be identified amongst flint-knapping debris at Acheulean sites. [citation needed]
Lower Paleolithic – earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 2.5 million years ago when the first evidence of craft and use of stone tools by hominins appears in the current archaeological record, until around 300,000 years ago, spanning the Oldowan ("mode 1") and Acheulean ("mode 2") lithic ...
Front and side view of a ficron. A ficron handaxe is the name given to a type of prehistoric stone tool biface with long, curved sides and a pointed, well-made tip. They are found in Lower Palaeolithic, [1] Middle Palaeolithic and Acheulean contexts, and are some of the oldest tools ever created by humans. [2]
The hand axe is a fine example from about 350,000 years ago, in the Lower Paleolithic period, but its main significance lies in the role it and the circumstances of its excavation played in the emerging understanding of early human history.