Acheulean hand-axes from Kent. The types shown are (clockwise from top) cordate, ficron and ovate.

Acheulean (also spelt Acheulian, pronounced /ætʃuːlɪən/ or /ætʃuːleɪən/) is the name given to an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture associated with prehistoric hominines during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of Asia and Europe. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (896x1464, 117 KB) Summary Acheulean handaxes from Kent. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (896x1464, 117 KB) Summary Acheulean handaxes from Kent. ... Kent is a county in England, south-east of London. ... An archaeological industry is the name given to a consistent range of assemblages connected with a single product, such as the Langdale axe industry. ... Ancient stone tools A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made of stone. ... Genera Gorilla Pan (chimpanzees) Homo (humans) Paranthropus (extinct) Australopithecus (extinct) Sahelanthropus (extinct) Ardipithecus (extinct) Kenyanthropus (extinct) Homininae is a subfamily of Hominidae, including Homo sapiens and some extinct relatives, as well as the gorillas and the chimpanzees. ... The Lower Paleolithic or Palaeolithic refers to the earliest period of human existence, the first of the three Paleolithic (Stone Age) periods. ... Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia. ... World map showing the location of Asia. ... World map showing Europe Political map Europe is one of the seven continents of Earth which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europes borders. ...

It was the dominant technology for the vast majority of human history and more than one million years ago it was Acheulean tool users who left Africa to first successfully colonise Eurasia^[1]. Their distinctive oval and pear-shaped handaxes have been found over a wide area and some examples attained a very high level of sophistication suggesting that the roots of human art, economy and social organisation arose as a result of their development. Although it developed in Africa, the industry is named after the type site of Saint Acheul, now a suburb of Amiens in northern France, where some of the first examples were identified in the nineteenth century. Eurasia African-Eurasian aspect of Earth Eurasia is the landmass composed of Europe and Asia. ... A hand axe is a bifacial Paleolithic core tool. ... In archaeology a type site (also known as a type-site or typesite) is a site that is considered the model of a particular archaeological culture. ... Saint Acheul is a commune of the Somme département. ... The cathedral in Amiens Location within France Amiens is a city and commune in the north of France, 120 km north of Paris. ...

Rediscovery

John Frere is generally credited as being the first to suggest a very ancient date for Acheulean hand-axes. In 1797 he sent two examples to the Royal Academy in London from Hoxne in Suffolk. He had found them in prehistoric lake deposits along with the bones of extinct animals and concluded that they were made by people "who had not the use of metals" and that they belonged to a "very ancient period indeed, even beyond the present world". His ideas were ignored by his contemporaries however, who largely still subscribed to a pre-Darwinian view of human evolution. John Frere (1740-1807) was an English antiquary and a pioneering discoverer of Old Stone Age or Palaeolithic tools in association with large extinct animals at Hoxne, Suffolk in 1797. ... 1797 (MDCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 11-day-slower Julian calendar). ... This article refers to an art institution in London. ... London is the capital city of England and of the United Kingdom, and is the most populous city in the European Union. ... Hoxne is a village in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England, about five miles east of Diss. ... Suffolk (pronounced SUF-fk) is a large traditional and administrative county in the East Anglia region of eastern England. ... Charles Darwin Darwinism is a term for the underlying theory in those ideas of Charles Darwin concerning evolution and natural selection. ... Human evolution is the part of the theory of evolution by which human beings emerged as a distinct species. ...

Later, Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes, working between 1836 and 1846, collected further examples of hand-axes and fossilised animal bone from the gravel river terraces of the Somme near Abbeville in northern France. Again, his theories attributing great antiquity to the finds were spurned by his colleagues until one of de Perthe's main opponents, Dr Jean Paul Rigollot, began finding more tools near Saint Acheul. Following visits to both Abbeville and Saint Acheul by the geologist Joseph Prestwich, the age of the tools was finally accepted. Jacques Boucher de CrèvecÅ“ur de Perthes (10 September 1788 – 5 August 1868), also referred to as Boucher de Perthes, was the customhouse director at Abbeville in Picardy, France from 1825 to 1868. ... Charles Darwin 1836 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... 1846 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... It has been suggested that Fossil record be merged into this article or section. ... A river terrace is geological term for a flat platform of land created on either side of a river where, at some time in the past, the river has cut itself a deeper channel. ... Somme river The Somme River (French Rivière Somme) is a river in Picardy, northern France. ... Collégiale St Vulfran Beffroi Abbeville is a city in the Picardie région, in the north of France. ... Dr Jean-Paul Rigollot (1810-1873) was a nineteenth century French doctor and antiquarian famous for his role in the identification of evidence of some of Europes earliest inhabitants and his invention of the mustard plaster. ... Joseph Prestwich (12 March 1812 - June 23, 1896) was a British geologist and businessman, known as an expert on the Tertiary Period and for having confirmed the findings of Boucher de Perthes. ...

Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet described the characteristic hand-axe tools as belonging to L'Epoque de St Acheul in 1872. The industry was renamed as the Acheulean in 1925. Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet (August 29, 1821 – September 25, 1898), French anthropologist, was born at Meylau, Isère. ... 1872 (MDCCCLXXII) was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Dating the Acheulean

An Acheulean handaxe from Zamora

Providing calendrical dates and ordered chronological sequences in the study of early stone tool manufacture is difficult and contentious. Radiometric dating, often Potassium-argon dating, of deposits containing Acheulean material is able to broadly place the use of Acheulean techniques within the time from around 1.65 million years ago^[2] to about 100,000 years ago^[3]. The earliest accepted examples of the type, at 1.65m years old, come from the West Turkana region of Kenya^[4] although some have argued for its emergence from as early as 1.8m million years ago ^[5]. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1673x1350, 124 KB) Sumario es: Bifaz achelense típico, con forma amigdaloide, procede de un yaciminento superficial de la provincia de Zamora (España), en el valle del Duero en: Tipycal Acheulean Handhaxe, it has tear form and proceeds from a... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1673x1350, 124 KB) Sumario es: Bifaz achelense típico, con forma amigdaloide, procede de un yaciminento superficial de la provincia de Zamora (España), en el valle del Duero en: Tipycal Acheulean Handhaxe, it has tear form and proceeds from a... Categories: Spain geography stubs | Castile-Leon | Provinces of Spain ... Radiometric dating is a technique used to date materials based on a knowledge of the decay rates of naturally occurring isotopes, and the current abundances. ... Potassium-argon or K-Ar dating is a geochronological method used in many geoscience disciplines. ... Turkana refers to: Turkana people of Kenya Turkana language of Kenya Lake Turkana the fictional world of Turkana IV in a Star Trek Next Generation episode This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ...

In individual regions, this dating can be considerably refined; in Europe for example, Acheulean methods did not reach the continent until around one million years ago and in smaller study areas, the date ranges can be much shorter. Numerical dates can be misleading however, and it is common to associate examples of this early human tool industry with one or more glacial or interglacial periods or with a particular early species of human. The earliest user of Acheulean tools was Homo ergaster who first appeared almost 2 million years ago. Not all researchers use this formal name however and instead prefer to call these users early homo erectus^[6]. Later forms of early humans also used Acheulean techniques and are described below. A glaciation (a created composite term meaning Glacial Period, referring to the Period or Era of, as well as the process of High Glacial Activity), often called an ice age, is a geological phenomenon in which massive ice sheets form in the Arctic and Antarctic and advance toward the equator. ... Glaciation, often called an ice age, is a geological phenomenon in which massive ice sheets form in the Arctic and Antarctic and advance toward the equator. ... Binomial name Homo ergaster Groves & Mazak, 1975 Homo ergaster (working man) is an extinct hominid species (or subspecies, according to some authorities) which lived throughout eastern and southern Africa between 1. ... Binomial name †Homo erectus (Dubois, 1892) Subspecies Homo erectus (upright man) is a hominin species that is believed to be an ancestor of modern humans (with Homo heidelbergensis usually treated as an intermediary step). ...

Relative dating techniques (based on a presumption that technology progresses over time) suggest that Acheulean tools followed on from earlier, cruder tool-making methods, however there is considerable chronological overlap in early prehistoric stone-working industries and there is evidence in some regions that Acheulean tool-using groups were contemporary with other, less sophisticated industries such as the Clactonian^[7] and then later, with the more sophisticated Mousterian too. It is therefore important not to see the Acheulean as a neatly defined period or one that happened as part of a clear sequence but as one tool-making technique that flourished especially well in early prehistory. The enormous geographic spread of Acheulean techniques also makes the name unwieldy as it represents numerous regional variations on a similar theme. The term Acheulean does not represent a common culture in the modern sense, rather it is a basic method for making stone tools that was shared across much of the Old World. The Clactonian is the name given by archaeologists to an industry of European flint tool manufacture which dates to the early part of the interglacial period known as the Hoxnian, the Mindell-Riss or the Holstein interglacial (300,000-200,000 years ago). ... Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to style of flint tools (or industry) dating to the Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age. ... The word culture, from the Latin colo, -ere, with its root meaning to cultivate, generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. ... The Old World consists of those parts of Earth known to Europeans before the voyages of Christopher Columbus; it includes Europe, Asia, and Africa (collectively known as Africa-Eurasia), plus surrounding islands. ...

The very earliest Acheulean assemblages often contain numerous Oldowan-style flakes and core forms and it is almost certain that the Acheulean developed from this older industry. There have been no excavated examples of transitional tool forms however^[8]. An assemblage is an archaeological term meaning a group of different artefacts found in association with one another, that is, in the same context. ... Oldowan is an anthropological designation for an industry of stone tools used by prehistoric hominids in the very early Paleolithic. ... In archaeology, a lithic flake is a thin, sharp fragment of stone that results from the process of lithic reduction. ... In archaeology, a lithic core is a distinctive artifact that results from the practice of lithic reduction. ...

Acheulean stone tools

Stages

In the four divisions of prehistoric stone-working ^[9], Acheulean artefacts are classified as Mode 2, meaning they are more advanced than the (usually earlier) Mode 1 tools of the Clactonian or Oldowan/Abbevillian industries but lacking the sophistication of the (usually later) Mode 3 Middle Palaeolithic technology, exemplified by the Mousterian industry. Oldowan is an anthropological designation for an industry of stone tools used by prehistoric hominids in the very early Paleolithic. ... Abbevillian is the term given by archaeologists to the earliest stone tool industries of Europe and Africa. ... Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to style of flint tools (or industry) dating to the Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age. ...

An Acheulean hand-axe found at Omo Kibish in Ethiopia.

The Mode 1 industries created rough flake tools by hitting a suitable stone with a hammerstone. The resulting flake that broke off would have a natural sharp edge for cutting and could afterwards be sharpened further by striking another smaller flake from the edge if necessary (known as retouch). These early toolmakers may also have worked the stone they took the flake from (known as a core) to create chopper cores although there is some debate over whether these items were tools or just discarded cores ^[10]. Image File history File links Acheuleanhandaxe. ... Image File history File links Acheuleanhandaxe. ... Omo Kibish is a rock formation and archaeological site on the Omo River in Ethiopia. ... In archaeology a flake tool is a type of stone tool created by striking a flake from a prepared stone core. ... In archaeology, a hammerstone is a hard cobble used to strike lithic flakes off a lump of tool stone during the process of lithic reduction. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into photo manipulation. ... In archaeology, a lithic core is a distinctive artifact that results from the practice of lithic reduction. ... In archaeology a chopper core is a suggestyed type of stone tool created by using a lithic core as a chopper following the removal of flakes from that core. ...

The Mode 2 Acheulean toolmakers also used the Mode 1 flake tool method but supplemented it by also using wood or bone implements to pressure flake fragments away from stone cores to create the first true hand-axes. The use of a soft hammer made from an organic material rather than stone also resulted in more control over the shape of the finished tool. Unlike the earlier Mode 1 industries, it was the core that was prized over the flakes that came from it. Another advance was that the Mode 2 tools were worked symmetrically and on both sides indicating greater care in the production of the final tool. In lithic reduction, pressure flaking is a method of trimming the edge of a stone tool by removing small lithic flakes by pressing on the stone with a sharp instrument rather than striking it with a percussor. ...

Mode 3 technology emerged towards the end of Acheulean dominance and involved the Levallois technique, most famously exploited by the Mousterian industry. Transitional tool forms between the two are called Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition, or MAT types. The long blades of the Upper Palaeolithic Mode 4 industries appeared long after the Acheulean was abandoned. The Levallois technique is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of flint knapping developed by humans during the Palaeolithic period. ... In archaeology a blade is a type of stone tool created by striking a long narrow flake from a stone core. ... The Upper Paleolithic or Palaeolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. ...

As the period of Acheulean tool use is so vast, efforts have been made to classify various stages of it such as John Wymer's division into Early Acheulean, Middle Acheulean, Late Middle Acheulean and Late Acheulean^[11] for material from Britain. These schemes are normally regional and their dating and interpretations vary ^[12]. Dr John James Wymer, (5 March 1928 - 10 February 2006) was a British archaeologist and one of the leading experts on the Palaeolithic period. ...

In Africa, there is a distinct difference in the tools made before and after 600,000 years ago with the older group being thicker and less symmetric and the younger being more extensively trimmed. This may be connected with the appearance of Homo heidelbergensis in the archaeological record at this time who may have contributed this more sophisticated approach. Binomial name †Homo heidelbergensis Schoetensack, 1908 Homo heidelbergensis (nicknamed Goliath) is an extinct species of the genus Homo and the direct ancestor of Homo neanderthalensis in Europe. ...

Manufacture

The primary innovation associated with Acheulean hand-axes is that the stone was worked symmetrically and on both sides. For the latter reason, handaxes are, along with cleavers, known as biface tools. A hand axe is a bifacial Paleolithic core tool. ... In archaeology, a cleaver is a name given to a type of biface stone tool of the Lower Palaeolithic. ... Flint biface from Saint-Acheul, France. ...

Tool types found in Acheulean assemblages include pointed, cordate, ovate, ficron and bout-coupé hand-axes (referring to the shapes of the final tool), cleavers, retouched flakes, scrapers, and segmental chopping tools. Materials used were determined by available local stone types; flint is most often associated with the tools but its use is concentrated in Western Europe; in Africa sedimentary and igneous rock such as mudstone and basalt were most widely used for example. Other source materials include chalcedony, quartzite, andesite, sandstone, chert and shale. Even relatively soft rock such as limestone could be exploited ^[13]. In all cases the toolmakers worked their handaxes close to the source of their raw materials suggesting that the Acheulean was a set of skills passed between individual groups^[14]. An assemblage is an archaeological term meaning a group of different artefacts found in association with one another, that is, in the same context. ... A ficron handaxe is a name given to a type of prehistoric stone tool biface with long, curved sides and a pointed, well-made tip. ... Bout-coupé is a term used by archaeologists to describe a type of handaxe that constituted part of the Mousterian industry of the Middle Palaeolithic. ... In archeology, scrapers are unifacial tools that were used either for hideworking or woodworking purposes. ... Pebble beach made up of flint nodules eroded out of the nearby chalk cliffs, Cape Arkona, Rügen Flint (or flintstone) is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline silica rock with a glassy appearance. ... Two types of sedimentary rock: limey shale overlaid by limestone. ... Volcanic rock on North America Plutonic rock on North America Igneous rocks are formed when molten rock (magma) cools and solidifies, with or without crystallization, either below the surface as intrusive (plutonic) rocks or on the surface as extrusive (volcanic) rocks. ... Mudstone is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. ... Basalt Basalt is a common gray to black volcanic rock. ... Chalcedony Knife, AD 1000-1200 Chalcedony is one of the cryptocrystalline varieties of the mineral quartz, having a waxy luster. ... Quartzite Quartzite is a hard, metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. ... A sample of andesite (dark groundmass) with amygdaloidal vesicules filled with zeolite. ... Sandstone near Stadtroda, Germany Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-size mineral or rock grains. ... Chert Chert is a fine-grained silica-rich cryptocrystalline sedimentary rock that may contain small fossils. ... Shale Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. ... Limey shale overlaid by limestone. ...

Some smaller tools were made from large flakes that had been struck from stone cores. These flake tools and the distinctive waste flakes produced in Acheulean tool manufacture suggest a more considered technique, one that required the toolmaker to think one or two steps ahead during work that necessitated a clear sequence of steps to create perhaps several tools in one sitting.

A hard hammerstone would first be used to rough out the shape of the tool from the stone by removing large flakes. These large flakes might be re-used to create tools. The tool maker would work around the circumference of the remaining stone core, removing smaller flakes alternately from each face. The scar created by the removal of the preceding flake would provide a striking platform for the removal of the next. Misjudged blows or flaws in the material used could cause problems, but a skilled toolmaker could overcome them. In lithic reduction, the striking platform is the point on the proximal portion of a lithic flake on which the detachment blow fell; this may be natural or prepared. ...

Once the roughout shape was created, a further phase of flaking was undertaken to make the tool thinner. The thinning flakes were removed using a softer hammer, such as bone or antler. The softer hammer required more careful preparation of the striking platform and this would be abraded using a coarse stone to ensure the hammer did not slide off when struck.

Final shaping was then applied to the usable cutting edge of the tool, again using fine removal of flakes. Some Acheulean tools were sharpened instead by the removal of a tranchet flake. 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 across the blade of the axe to create a neat and very sharp working edge. This distinctive tranchet flake can been identified amongst flint-knapping debris at Acheulean sites. In archaeology, a tranchet flake is a characteristic type of flake removed by a flintknapper during lithic reduction. ... A flintknapper is an individual who shapes flint or other stone through the process of knapping or lithic reduction, to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing walls. ...

Use

Loren Eiseley calculated^[15] that Acheulean tools have an average useful cutting edge of 20 cm making them much more efficient that the 5 cm average of Oldowan tools Loren Eiseley, 1907-1977, was a highly respected anthropologist, science writer, and poet who published a number of books in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. ... Oldowan is an anthropological designation for an industry of stone tools used by prehistoric hominids in the very early Paleolithic. ...

Use-wear analysis on Acheulean tools suggests there was generally no specialisation in the different types created and that they were multi-use implements. Functions included hacking wood from a tree, cutting animal carcasses as well as scraping and cutting hides when necessary. Some tools may have been better suited to digging roots or butchering animals than others however. Use-wear analysis is a method in archaeology to identify the functions of artefact tools by closely examining their working surfaces and edges. ...

A large and carefully crafted handaxe such as this may have served a social as well as functional purpose

Alternative theories include a use for ovate hand-axes as a kind of hunting discus to be hurled at prey ^[16]. Puzzlingly, there are also examples of sites where hundreds of hand-axes, many impractically large and also apparently unused, have been found in close association together. Sites such as Melka Kunturé in Ethiopia, Olorgesailie in Kenya, Isimila in Tanzania and Kalambo Falls in Zambia have produced evidence that suggests Acheulean hand-axes may not always have had a functional purpose. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (767x1208, 29 KB) Summary Palaeolithic ficron handaxe from Cuxton in Kent, taken by me 25/03/06. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (767x1208, 29 KB) Summary Palaeolithic ficron handaxe from Cuxton in Kent, taken by me 25/03/06. ... Alternate meaning: Discus fish The discus throw is an athletics (track and field) throwing event. ... An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been investigated using the discipline of archaeology. ... Association in archaeology refers to a close relationship between two or more objects. ... Kalambo Falls Kalambo Falls is a 772ft (235m) single drop waterfall on the border of Zambia and Tanzania at the southeast end of Lake Tanganyika. ...

Recently, it has been suggested^[17] that the Acheulean tool users adopted the handaxe as a social artefact, meaning that it embodied something beyond its function of a butchery or wood cutting tool. Knowing how to create and use these tools would have been a valuable skill and the more elaborate ones suggest that they played a role in their owners' identity and their interactions with others. This would help explain the apparent over-sophistication of some examples which may represent a "historically accrued social significance"^[18].

One theory goes further and suggests that some special hand-axes were made and displayed by males in search of mate, using a large, well-made hand-axe to demonstrate that they possessed sufficient strength and skill to pass on to their offspring. Once they had attracted a female at a group gathering, it is suggested that they would discard their axes, perhaps explaining why so many are found together ^[19].

Distribution

The geographic distribution of Acheulian tools and thus the people that made them is often interpreted as being the result of palaeoclimatic and ecological factors, such as glaciation and the desertification of the Sahara Desert^[20]. Paleoclimatology is the study of climate change taken on the scale of the entire history of the earth. ... Ernst Haeckel coined the term oekologie in 1866. ... A glaciation (a created composite term meaning Glacial Period, referring to the Period or Era of, as well as the process of High Glacial Activity), often called an ice age, is a geological phenomenon in which massive ice sheets form in the Arctic and Antarctic and advance toward the equator. ... Ship stranded by the retreat of the Aral Sea Desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations and human activities. ... The Sahara is the worlds second largest desert (second to Antarctica), over 9,000,000 km² (3,500,000 mi²), located in northern Africa and is 2. ...

Acheulean stone tools have been found across the continent of Africa, save for the dense rainforest around the River Congo which is not thought to have been colonised by humans until later. From Africa its use spread north and east to the cover land in Asia stretching from Anatolia, through the Arabian peninsula, across modern day Iran and Pakistan and into India and beyond. In Europe its users reached the western Mediterranean regions as well as modern day France, the Low Countries, western Germany and southern and central Britain. Areas further north did not see human occupation until much later due to glaciation. This article is about the rainforest in general. ... Image of Kinshasa and Brazzaville, taken by NASA; the Congo River is visible in the center of the photograph Length 4,380 km Elevation of the source m Average discharge 41,800 m³/s Area watershed 3,680,000 km² Origin Mouth Atlantic Ocean Basin countries Dem. ... Asia Minor lies east of the Bosporus, between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. ... The Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (in Arabic: شبه الجزيرة العربية, or جزيرة العرب) is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia consisting mainly of desert. ... The Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea positioned between Europe to the north, Africa to the south and Asia to the east, covering an approximate area of 2. ... The Low Countries, the historical region of de Nederlanden, are the countries (see Country) on low-lying land around the delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse (Maas) rivers. ...

Until the 1980s it was thought that the humans that arrived in East Asia abandoned the hand-axe technology of their ancestors and adopted chopper tools instead. An apparent division between the Acheulean and non-Acheulean tool industries was identified by Hallam L. Movius who drew the Movius Line across northern India to show where the traditions seemed to diverge. Later finds of Acheulean tools at Chongokni in South Korea and also in Mongolia and China however cast doubt on the reliability of Movius' distinction ^[21]. Since then, a different division known as the Roe Line has been suggested. This runs across North Africa to Israel and then to India and separates two different techniques used by Acheulean toolmakers. North and east of the Roe Line, Acheulean hand-axes were made directly from large stone nodules and cores whilst to the south and west they were made from flakes stuck from these nodules^[22]. Archaeologists define a chopper as a pebble tool with an irregular cutting edge formed through the removal of flakes from one side of a stone. ... Hallam Leonard Movius (1907-1987) was an American archaeologist most famous for his work on the palaeolithic period. ... The Movius Line is a theoretical line drawn across northern India first proposed by the American archaeologist Hallam L. Movius in 1948 to demonstrate a technological difference between the early prehistoric tool technologies of the east and west of the Old World. ... The Roe Line is a suggested distinction between two forms of prehistoric stone tool named in honour of the archaeologist Derek Roe by Clive Gamble and Gilbert Marshall. ...

Acheulean tool users

Acheulean tools were not made by fully modern humans that is, Homo sapiens although the early or non-modern (transitional) Homo sapiens idaltu did use Late Acheulean tools as did proto-Neanderthal species^[23]. Most notably however it is Homo ergaster (sometimes called early Homo erectus), whose assemblages are almost exclusively Acheulean, who used the technique. Later, the related species Homo heidelbergensis also used it extensively. Trinomial name Homo sapiens sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 Humans, or human beings, are bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens (Latin for wise man or knowing man) under the family Hominidae (the great apes). ... Trinomial name Homo sapiens idaltu White et al, 2003 Homo sapiens idaltu (roughly translated as elderly wise man) is an extinct subspecies of Homo sapiens that lived almost 160,000 years ago in Pleistocene Africa. ... Binomial name †Homo neanderthalensis King, 1864 The Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) or Neandertal was a species of the Homo genus that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia. ... Binomial name Homo ergaster Groves & Mazak, 1975 Homo ergaster (working man) is an extinct hominid species (or subspecies, according to some authorities) which lived throughout eastern and southern Africa between 1. ... Binomial name †Homo erectus (Dubois, 1892) Subspecies Homo erectus (upright man) is a hominin species that is believed to be an ancestor of modern humans (with Homo heidelbergensis usually treated as an intermediary step). ... An assemblage is an archaeological term meaning a group of different artefacts found in association with one another, that is, in the same context. ... In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biodiversity. ... Binomial name †Homo heidelbergensis Schoetensack, 1908 Homo heidelbergensis (nicknamed Goliath) is an extinct species of the genus Homo and the direct ancestor of Homo neanderthalensis in Europe. ...

The symmetry of the hand-axes has been used to suggest that Acheulean tool users possessed the ability to use language^[24]; the parts of the brain connected with fine control and movement are located in the same region that controls speech. The wider variety of tool types compared to earlier industries and their aesthetically and well as functionally pleasing form could indicate a higher intellectual level in Acheulean tool users than in earlier hominines^[25]. Others argue that there is no correlation between spatial abilities in tool making and linguistic behaviour and that language is not learnt or conceived in the same manner as artefact manufacture^[26]. Comparative brain sizes In animals, the brain, or encephalon (Greek for in the head), is the control center of the central nervous system. ... Genera Gorilla Pan (chimpanzees) Homo (humans) Paranthropus (extinct) Australopithecus (extinct) Sahelanthropus (extinct) Ardipithecus (extinct) Kenyanthropus (extinct) Homininae is a subfamily of Hominidae, including Homo sapiens and some extinct relatives, as well as the gorillas and the chimpanzees. ...

Lower Palaeolithic finds made in association with Acheulean hand-axes such as the Venus of Berekhat Ram^[27] have been used to argue for artistic expression amongst the tool users. The incised elephant tibia from Bilzingsleben^[28] in Germany and ochre finds from Kapthurin in Kenya^[29] and Duinefontein in South Africa^[30] are sometimes cited as being some of the earliest examples of an aesthetic sensibility in human history. There are numerous other explanations put forward for the creation of these artefacts however and there is no unequivocal evidence of human art until around 50,000 years ago, following the emergence of modern Homo sapiens^[31]. The Venus of Berekhet Ram is a small venus figurine that was found on the Golan Heights in Israel. ... Venus de Milo exhibited in the Louvre museum, France. ... Genera and Species Elephantidae (the elephants) is a family of pachyderm, and the only remaining family in the order Proboscidea. ... Figure 1 : Upper surface of right tibia. ... Bilzingsleben is a findspot of early palaeolithic human remains in Thuringia, Germany. ... This article is about the color. ... The Kapthurin formation is a basalt outcrop in Kenya near Lake Bogoria and Lake Baringo. ... Duinefontein 1 and 2 are early prehistoric archaeological sites near Cape Town in South Africa They have produced Acheulean stone tools and animal bones dating from between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago. ...

The kill site at Boxgrove in England is another famous Acheulean site. Up until the 1970s these kill sites, often at waterholes where animals would gather to drink, were interpreted as being where Acheulean tool users killed game, butchered their carcasses and then discarded the tools they had used. Since the advent of zooarchaeology, which has placed greater emphasis on studying animal bones from archaeological sites, this view has now changed. Many of the animals at these kill sites have since been found to have been killed by other predators and it is likely that people of the period supplemented hunting with scavenging from already dead animals^[32]. Boxgrove is the name of a Lower Palaeolithic archaeological site discovered in a gravel quarry to the east of Chichester in the English county of West Sussex. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location (dark green) within the United Kingdom (light green), with the Republic of Ireland (blue) to its west Languages English Capital London Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population –mid-2004... A waterhole, in its simplest definition, is a hole filled with water. ... Zooarchaeology (or Archaeozoology) is the study of animal remains from archaeological sites. ...

Only limited artefactual evidence survives of the users of Acheulean tools save the stone tools themselves. Cave sites were exploited for habitation but the hunter-gatherers of the Palaeolithic also possibly built shelters such as those identified in connection with Acheulean tools at Grotte du Lazaret^[33] and Terra Amata near Nice in France. The presence of the shelters is inferred from large rocks at the sites which may have been used to weigh down the bottoms of tent-like structures or serve as foundations for huts or windbreaks. These stones may have been naturally deposited, but in any case, a flimsy wood or animal skin structure would leave few archaeological traces after so long. Fire was seemingly being exploited by homo ergaster and it would have been a necessity in colonising colder Eurasia from Africa. Conclusive evidence of mastery over it this early is difficult to find however. In anthropology, the hunter-gatherer way of life is that led by certain societies of the Neolithic Era based on the exploitation of wild plants and animals. ... The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic – lit. ... The Grotte du Lazaret (English: Cave of Le Lazaret) is a cave now in the eastern suburbs of the French town of Nice and now overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. ... Terra Amata is an archaeological site nearFrench town of Nice. ... City flag City coat of arms Motto: [1] (Latin: Nice the city) Coordinates : , Time Zone : CET (GMT +1) Administration Département Alpes-Maritimes (06) Région Provence-Alpes-Côte dAzur Mayor Jacques Peyrat (UMP) (since 1995) Intercommunality Community of Agglomeration Nice Côte dAzur City (commune) Characteristics... A large bonfire. ... Eurasia African-Eurasian aspect of Earth Eurasia is the landmass composed of Europe and Asia. ...

For further details of the known environment and people during the time when Acheulean tools were being made, see Palaeolithic and Lower Palaeolithic.

The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic – lit. ... The Lower Paleolithic or Palaeolithic refers to the earliest period of human existence, the first of the three Paleolithic (Stone Age) periods. ...

See also

• Lithic reduction
• Stone Age

Lithic reduction involves the use of a hard hammer percussor, such as a hammerstone, a soft hammer fabricator made of wood, bone or antler, or a wood or antler punch to detach lithic flakes from a lump of tool stone called a lithic core. ... Stone Age fishing hook. ...

References

• Adkins, L; and R (1998). The Handbook of British Archaeology. London: Constable. ISBN 0094783306.
• Butler, C (2005). Prehistoric Flintwork. Tempus, Stroud. ISBN 0752433407.
• Darvill, T (ed.) (2003). Oxford Concise Dictionary of Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192800051.
• Milliken, S; and J Cook (eds) (2001). A Very Remote Period Indeed. Papers on the Palaeolithic presented to Derek Roe. Oxford: Oxbow. ISBN 1842170562.
• Renfrew, C; and P Bahn (1991). Archaeology, Theories Methods and Practice. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0500276056.
• Scarre, C (ed.) (2005). The Human Past. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0500285314.
• Wood, B (2005). Human Evolution A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192803603.

1. ↑ Bar-Yosef, O and Belfer-Cohen, A, 2001, From Africa to Eurasia - Early Dispersals, Quaternary International 75, 19-28, Abstract
2. ↑ Scarre, C, 2005, p110
3. ↑ Clark, JD, Variability in primary and secondary technologies of the Later Acheulian in Africa in Milliken, S and Cook, J (eds), 2001
4. ↑ Roche H and Kibunjia, M, 1994, Les sites archaéologiques plio-pléistocènes de la formation de Nachukui, West Turkana, Kenya: bilan synthétique 1997-2001, Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Paris 318 (Série II), 1145-51, qtd in Scarre, 2005
5. ↑ Roche H et al., 2002, Les sites archaéologiques pio-pléistocènes de la formation de Nachukui, Ouest-Turkana, Kenya: bilan synthétique 1997-2001, Comptes Rendus Palevol 2, 663-673, qtd in Scarre, 2005
6. ↑ Wood, B, 2005, p87.
7. ↑ Ashton, N, McNabb, J, Irving, B, Lewis, S and Parfitt, S Contemporaneity of Clactonian and Acheulian flint industries at Barnham, Suffolk Antiquity 68, 260, p585–589 Abstract
8. ↑ Clark, JD et al., 1966, Precision and definition in African archaeology, South African Archaeological Bulletin XXI (83), 114-21 qtd in Scarre, 2005
9. ↑ Barton, RNE, Stone Age Britain English Heritage/BT Batsford:London 1997 qtd in Butler, 2005. See also Wymer, JJ, The Lower Palaeolithic Occupation of Britain, Wessex Archaeology and English Heritage, 1999.
10. ↑ Ashton, NM, McNabb, J, and Parfitt, S, Choppers and the Clactonian, a reinvestigation, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 58, pp21-28, qtd in Butler, 2005
11. ↑ Wymer, JJ, 1968, Lower Palaeolithic Archaeology in Britain: as represented by the Thames Valley, qtd in Adkins, L and R, 1998
12. ↑ Collins, D, 1978, Early Man in West Middlesex, qtd in Adkins, L and R, 1998
13. ↑ Paddayya, K, Jhaldiyal, R and Petraglia, MD, Excavation of an Acheulian workshop at Isampur, Karnataka (India) Antiquity 74, 286, pp 751–752 Abstract
14. ↑ Gamble, C and Steele, J, 1999, Hominid ranging patterns and dietary strategies in Ullrich, H (ed.), Hominid evolution: lifestyles and survival strategies, pp 396-409, Gelsenkirchen: Edition Archaea.
15. ↑ Unattributed citation in Renfrew and Bahn, 1991, p277
16. ↑ O'Brien, E, 1981, The projectile capabilities of an Acheulian handaxe from Olorgesailie, Current Anthropology 22: 76-9. See also Calvin, W, 1993, The unitary hypothesis: a common neural circuitry for novel manipulations, language, plan-ahead and throwing, in K.R. Gibson & T. Ingold (ed.), Tools, language and cognition in human evolution: 230-50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
17. ↑ Gamble, C, 1997, Handaxes and palaeolithic individuals, in N. Ashton, F. Healey & P.Pettitt (ed.), Stone Age archaeology: 105-9. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Monograph 102.
18. ↑ White, MJ, 1998, On the significance of Acheulian biface variability in southern Britain, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 64: 15-44.
19. ↑ Kohn, M and Mithen, S, 1999, Handaxes: products of sexual selection?, Antiquity 73, 518-26 Abstract
20. ↑ Todd, L, Glantz, M and Kappelman, J, Chilga Kernet: an Acheulean landscape on Ethiopia's western plateau Antiquity 76, 293 pp 611–612 Abstract
21. ↑ Hyeong Woo Lee, The Palaeolithic industries of Korea: chronology and related new findspots in Milliken, S and Cook, J (eds), 2001
22. ↑ Gamble, C and Marshall, G, The shape of handaxes, the structure of the Acheulian world, in Milliken, S an d Cook, J (eds), 2001
23. ↑ Clarke, JD et al., 2003, Stratigraphic, chronological and behavioural contexts of Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia, Nature 423, 747-52, Abstract
24. ↑  Isaac, GL, 1976, Stages of cultural elaboration in the Pleistocene: possible archaeological indicators of the development of language capabilities, in Origins and Evolution of Languages and Speech (SR Harbard et al. eds.), 276-88, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 280, qtd in Renfrew and Bahn, 1991
25. ↑ Wynne, T, 1995, Handaxe enigmas, World Archaeology 27, 10-24, qtd in Scarre, 2005
26. ↑ Dibble, HL, 1989, The implications of stone tool types for the presence of language during the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, in The Human Revolution (P Mellars and C Stringer eds) Edinburgh University Press, qtd in Renfrew and Bahn, 1991.
27. ↑ Goren-Inbar, N and Peltz, S, 1995, Additional remarks on the Berekhat Ram figure, Rock Art Research 12, 131-132, qtd in Scarre, 2005
28. ↑ Mania, D and Mania, U, 1988, Deliberate engravings on bone artefacts of Homo Erectus, Rock Art Research 5, 91-97, qtd in Scarre, 2005
29. ↑ Tryon, CA and McBrearty, S, 2002, Tephrostatigraphy and the Acheulean to Middle Stone Age transition in the Kapthurin Formation, Kenya, Journal of Human Evolution 42, 211-35, qtd in Scarre, 2005 Abstract
30. ↑ Cruz-Uribe, K et al, 2003, Excavation of buried late Acheulean (mid-Quaternary) land surfaces at Duinefontein 2, West Cape Province, South Africa, Journal of Archaeological Science 30, 559-75, qtd in Scarre, 2005
31. ↑ Scarre, 2005, chapter 3 , p118 "However, objects whose artistic meaning is unequivocal become commonplace only after 50,000 years ago, when they are associated with the origins and spread of fully modern humans from Africa.
32. ↑ ...the most conservative conclusion today is that Acheulean people and their contemporaries definitely hunted big animals, though their success rate is not clear ibid, p 120.
33. ↑ De Lumley, 1975, Cultural evolution in France in its palaeoecological setting during the middle Pleistocene, in After the Australopithecines, Butzer, KW and Issac, G Ll. (eds) 745-808. The Hague:Mouton, qtd in Scarre, 2005

Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn (born 25 July 1937), English archaeologist, notable for his work on the radiocarbon revolution, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, and the prevention of looting of archaeological sites. ... Ofer Bar-Yosef (born 1937) is an Israeli archaeologist whose main field of study has been the palaeolithic period. ... John Desmond Clark (more commonly J. Desmond Clark, April 10, 1916 - February 14, 2002) was a British archaeologist noted particularly for his work on prehistoric Africa. ... Antiquity is one of the worlds leading learned journals dedicated to the subject of archaeology. ... English Heritage is a United Kingdom government body with a broad remit of managing the historic environment of England. ... Wessex Archaeology is one of the largest private archaeological organisations operating in the United Kingdom, based near Salisbury in Wiltshire Founded in 1974 as the Trust for Wessex Archaeology by members of the earlier Wessex Archaeological Committee, it took its present name in 1979 and became one of the first... Karnātakā (Kannada: ಕನಾ೯ಟಕ) (IPA: / /) is one of the four southern states of India. ... Antiquity is one of the worlds leading learned journals dedicated to the subject of archaeology. ... William H. Calvin, Ph. ... Antiquity is one of the worlds leading learned journals dedicated to the subject of archaeology. ... Antiquity is one of the worlds leading learned journals dedicated to the subject of archaeology. ... Glynn Llywelyn Isaac (1937-1985) was a South African archaeologist who specialised in the very early prehistory of Africa. ...

External links

• Acheulean Gallery
• Acheulean tools from Britain
• Acheulian Iran
• Acheulian Armenia
• Acheulian Project
• Acheulean France
• Early human fire skills revealed
• The Acheulian biface project: a digital archive for teaching and research