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. Archaeology or sometimes in American English archeology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ... In archaeology, a lithic flake is a thin, sharp fragment of stone that results from the process of lithic reduction. ...

They are crude forms of stone tool and generally only found in Lower Palaeolithic industries from around 2 million years ago. Later societies used a more advanced implement called a chopping tool, which was eventually refined into the more efficient handaxe. Ancient stone tools A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made of stone. ... The Lower Paleolithic or Palaeolithic refers to the earliest period of human existence, the first of the three Paleolithic (Stone Age) periods. ... A hand axe is a bifacial Paleolithic core tool. ...