Biface, handaxe

A Lower Palaeolithic flint pointed handaxeor biface dating 400,000 to 150,000 BCE. The handaxe was shaped by striking flakes using a hammer made of stone, bone or antler. Handaxes could be used in a number of different ways, often they were held in the hand and used to cut or chop, to skin and butcher an animal carcass. This was a tool type that survived for hundreds of thousands of years, it was incredibly effective. Everyone in the population knew how to shape flint, working with locally sourced materials and knapping the flint to create a tool to fulfil an intended function.

The unusually fresh condition of this example suggests that it must have lain close to where it had been dropped by the last user.