The exquisite handaxe, my favorite
Last week I showed you the chopping stone tool, today we move onto the Bi-face or Handaxe.
These are a couple of very nice specimens I picked up close to my house.
They are in various phases of manufacture, two were discarded as failures and never used.
The third was heavily utilized.
This is the flip side of the tools pictured above.
The two with the large lumps circled were discarded because the flaking process was incomplete. The (arrows) flakes from the sides broke away prematurely during manufacture and so the large lump of stone towards the middle could not be removed successfully.
The blue curve in the lower one shows finer chips that broke off after manufacture and indicate the tool was used quite extensively.
A successfully made tool is nice and narrow, the precursor to a blade, the circled area shows once again the finer breakage from heavy use.
The handaxe is the Swiss army knife of the stone age and has a very common oval to egg like shape
The pointed end is narrower and has a finer, blade like profile, used for fine cutting work, the more rounded base is more robust and used for heavier chopping work.
When chopping it is held like below and the damage due to use corresponds exactly.
When cutting with the sharper point, it is held between fingers and thumb, as below and corresponding finer damage can be also be seen there.
These are found throughout the world and were manufactured over a period millions of years, with only little variation over that entire period.
They represent such a useful tool that no major modifications were tried/necessary or there was a technological/intellectual stagnation during this phase of stone implement evolution.
This basic bifacially flaked tool, once developed, survived relatively unchanged up to a few 10's of thousands of years ago.
With time, they did become smaller and more intricate. Beyond a certain time span and intricacy they evolved into other more custom and single purpose tools.
Nice pieces, when I was younger I used to search for stuff like this in the corn fields behind my old home. I would find a arrow head here and there but never found anything of this size.
You in the states?
Bifaces are far less common there... most common in Africa, in some place you can find ridiculous numbers like hundreds of thousand per hectare.
Yeah, North West PA. You can find all kinds of things in the fields that got digged up by trackers.
Very insightful. I am gushing about almost everything this morning, but I have this deep need for learning more. My hubby used to be a geologist, and once he picked up an ancient tool somewhere in South Africa. I am ashamed to say, I do not even know where it is at this stage. I am now going to do my own kind of digging, finding that stone, wherever it is buried in the pile of stuff that we have gathered over twenty seven years of marriage. Than I am going to learn all about it. Thanks for the inspiration!
I like to watch Skallagrim on YT do this sometimes, but I'm more of a metal kind of guy. Making an arrowhead and a dagger these days!
Hi, nice post. I feel like in Flintstones now. XD
LOL
For sure lol😂😁😂😁😂😁
Would any of these be used for hunting / killing ?
usually butchery, and other cutting and chopping tasks
It is so amazing to see tools like this and how they were designed.
They perfectly seem to fit into your hand as you clasp it with great grip.
How long would it take to make tools like this? Would it takes hours to grind away to get a nice groove and cut?
Another enthralling post @gavvet
I can't wait for more
The unwanted stone is chipped away, much faster but less precise and it creates a razor sharp but brittle edge.
Takes someone who is well practiced 10 to 15 minutes to make one of these.
In many instances these tools have been found, made on the spot of a kill, used to butcher the animal and then discarded.
Not only was it a Swiss army knife but a disposable razor too...
It's amazing that you are able to identify those details so closely. When I look at the first picture, it's just some rocks to me. But by the end, I can see all of the stuff you point out that illuminates their use as tools.
Wooow..Whether the stone is as strong as jade or more ?
These are generally made of quartzite and other relatively hard minerals, they are stronger than Jade... Jade can be carved with quartz
Wooow, that's so amazing, What is the level of hardness of the stone. ?
7-7.5
@gavvet I'm a little jealous of your ability to find artifacts like these.
I'm lucky to find an old beer can.
What I find interesting is that the tools were obviously made to fit a hand of approximately the same size as our hands now. (Although obviously not nearly as soft and tender as most humans hands have become.)
If they are tens or hundreds of thousands of years old, does that indicate that the size and shape of our hands have been deemed relatively optimum in evolutionary terms?
Some do fit more comfortably in larger hands, others in smaller...
Hand size is a function of body size and is usually determined by nutrition, diet and robustness requirements of the environment.
Body shapes and sizes have varied widely throughout the evolutionary family tree, as they do today, where we have 4 ft and less to 7 ft or more individuals.
These are often related to race and geographical distribution today, which is a result of isolation under a certain set of conditions over very long periods.
Love this Stuff !!! i have always wanted to find a Clovis Point !!