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Hand axe
stone tool / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A hand axe is a stone tool of the Lower (early) and Middle Paleolithic Stone Age. It was a bifacial, similar on both sides, and held in the hand, not with a handle like a modern axe. It was held directly in the hand, perhaps wrapped in a piece of leather.
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![]() Pointed flint hand axe from Gray's Inn Lane, London | |
Size | 165 mm (6 in) long |
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Created | 350,000 years ago |
Discovered | Gray's Inn Lane, London |
Present location | British Museum, London |
This kind of axe is typical of the Acheulean and the Mousterian cultures, and is the longest-used tool of human history. Hand axes were certainly used for at least a million and a half years. They were made by earlier species of man, such as Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal Man); it was one of their most important tools. The hand axe cultures were preceded by an even older Oldowan culture of primitive stone tools (2.6 to 1.7 million years ago) in Africa.[1][2] Now it is known that the first stone tools were probably made by Australopithecines. They are found in the Great Rift Valley of Africa from about 3.3 million years ago.[3][4]
New archaeological evidence from Baise, Guangxi, China shows that there were occasional hand axes in eastern Asia. However, as the reference shows,[5] the artifacts were overwhelmingly choppers and flakes. The authors say "The stone tool assemblage shows close associations with the pebble tool industry... in South China".[5]
A line known as the Movius Line divides the Old World into two parts: to the west are the hand axe areas, and to the east are the chopper or flak-and-chip areas. It is supposed that there were at least two different cultural traditions.