The Stone Age of Southern Africa or Infinite Travels in my Personal Time Machine

Where it all began. When it all began. It was a time, where tools existed. Humans did not.
Holding such an object, gripping it, feeling all it's weight absorbed by my palm and by the skin on my fingertips seems otherworldly and heavily loaded. I am dialing into an ancient database of knowledge, a perspective on a world, ruled solely by the instinct and intuition of its inhabitants. The maker of this tool was not one of us. This was not a human being, but some other sentient creature, bipedal, feral, armed and dangerous.

This is an Acheulean Handaxe - Multipurpose tool of Homo erectus

This Lower Acheulean Bifacial Proto Hand Axe is between 1.5 million and 0,8 million years old, heavy with the history of humanity's development, and a silent witness that is awe inspiring and fascinating to observe and contemplate. I'm continuously perplexed by the fact, that, for every person, as profoundly stimulated and inspired as I feel by encounters with such amazing objects, there seem to be scores of people, who at best, wouldn't even flinch and at worst dismiss it as 'just some rock', when faced with such rich and incredible testimony. The way some of us are just drifting on moderate autopilot through this fascinating life is in complete contrast to the visceral, tangible reality of shaping such an object of use from the stone upon which we move, and go on to depend on it for survival and continued existence and development.

How do you feel about artifacts?