page_title: Hand axe
section_title: History and distribution
hierarchical_section_title: Hand axe / History and distribution
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the area where the hand axe cultures are spread out during the Middle Pleistocene (Acheulean) Español: Mapa aproximado del reparto de las culturas con bifaces durante el Pleistoceno Medio (Achelense) Français&#160;: Carte de répartition des principaux sites à bifaces au Pléistocène moyen (Acheuléen)
context_page_description: A hand axe is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history. It is usually made from flint or chert. It is characteristic of the lower Acheulean and middle Palaeolithic periods. Its technical name comes from the fact that the archetypical model is generally bifacial Lithic flake and almond-shaped. Hand axes tend to be symmetrical along their longitudinal axis and formed by pressure or percussion. The most common hand axes have a pointed end and rounded base, which gives them their characteristic shape, and both faces have been knapped to remove the natural cortex, at least partially. Hand axes are a type of the somewhat wider biface group of two-faced tools or weapons.
  Hand axes were the first prehistoric tools to be recognized as such: the first published representation of a hand axe was drawn by John Frere and appeared in a British publication in 1800. Until that time, their origins were thought to be natural or supernatural. They were called thunderstones, because popular tradition held that they had fallen from the sky during storms or were formed inside the earth by a lightning strike and then appeared at the surface.
context_section_description: The oldest known Oldowan tools were found in Gona, Ethiopia. These are dated to about 2.6 mya.
  Early examples of hand axes date back to 1.6 mya in the later Oldowan (Mode I), called the "developed Oldowan" by Mary Leakey. These hand axes became more abundant in mode II Acheulean industries that appeared in Southern Ethiopia around 1.4 mya. Some of the best specimens come from 1.2 mya deposits in Olduvai Gorge. They are known in Mousterian industries.
  By 1.8 mya early man was present in Europe. Remains of their activities were excavated in Spain at sites in the Guadix-Baza basin and near Atapuerca. Most early European sites yield "mode 1" or Oldowan assemblages. The earliest Acheulean sites in Europe appear around 0.5 mya. In addition, the Acheulean tradition did not spread to Eastern Asia. In Europe and particularly in France and England, the oldest hand axes appear after the Beestonian Glaciation–Mindel Glaciation, approximately 750,000 years ago, during the so-called Cromerian complex. They became more widely produced during the Abbevillian tradition.
  The apogee of hand axe manufacture took place in a wide area of the Old World, especially during the Riss glaciation, in a cultural complex that can be described as cosmopolitan and which is known as the Acheulean. The use of hand axes survived the Middle Palaeolithic in a much smaller area and were especially important during the Mousterian, up to the middle of the Last glacial period.
  [In Europe s]mall bifaces are found from the late Acheulean until the Aurignacian
  — Pierre-Jean Texier, Préhistoire et Technologie lithique, page 18
  Hand axes dating from the lower Palaeolithic were found on the Asian continent, on the Indian subcontinent and in the Middle East (to the south of parallel 40° N), but they were absent from the area to the east of the 90° E meridian. Movius designated a border (the so-called Movius Line) between the cultures that used hand axes to the west and those that made chopping tools and small retouched lithic flakes, such as were made by Peking man and the Ordos culture in China, or their equivalents in Indochina such as the Hoabinhian. However, Movius hypothesis was found incorrect when many hand axes made in Palaeolithic era were found in 1978 at Hantan River, Jeongok, Yeoncheon County, South Korea for the first time in East Asia. Some of them are exhibited at the Jeongok Prehistory Museum, South Korea.
  The Padjitanian culture from Java was traditionally thought to be the only oriental culture to manufacture hand axes. However, a site in Baise, China shows that hand axes were made in eastern Asia.
  In North America, hand axes make up one of the dominant tool industries, starting from the terminal Pleistocene and continuing throughout the Holocene. For example, the Folsom point and Clovis point traditions (collectively known as the fluted points) are associated with Paleo Indians, some of the first people to colonize the new world. Hand axe technology is almost unknown in Australian prehistory.
caption: Map showing the approximate distribution of cultures using bifaces during the Middle Pleistocene (Acheulean)[34]
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