Tag Archives: Lower Paleolithic

Handaxe from the Bergerac region

The Bergerac region is full of archaeological sites, mainly known from old surface collections (http://www.aggsbach.de/2011/02/the-prehistory-of-the-bergerac-region-in-the-dordogne/). This flat handaxe with multiple traces of resharpening and thinning  has been found during the 1910ies near Bergerac and is heavily patinated. With the advent … Continue reading

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Acheulean near Châteauneuf-sur-Loire

There are many old handaxe findings in the Loiret (Névoy, Ouzouer-sur-Loire, Bray-en-Val, Saint-Aignan-des-Gués, Saint-Martin-d’Abbat, Germigny-des-Prés, Mardié, Chécy…). Although the Acheulian in the Loire valley around Orleans is well developed and has many affinities to the Acheulian of the Indre and … Continue reading

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Paleolithic Core or Pebble-Tool from Kassel

This Quartzite tool was part of a surface scatter of artifacts (5x5m) on a field together with crude (non-Levallois) large flakes and some simple side-scrapers near Kassel. What is interesting is the fact, that the raw material was imported from a … Continue reading

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A flake Cleaver produced by the Tabelbala-Tachengit technique

This is a flake Cleaver produced by the Tabelbala-Tachengit technique, from the N/W-Sahara. The detachment of large flakes for biface manufacture is suggested to be one a significant technological advance of Homo erectus / ergaster. African cleavers are virtually without … Continue reading

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Handaxe from the “Rissian” Loess at Mantes / Seine

Rivers receive much coarse detritus from the landscapes they drain and much of this remains are incorporated in their valleys in various bodies of sediment. The fact that a large proportion of the Pleistocene archaeological record comes from fluvial deposits … Continue reading

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Handaxe Variability

The variability of handaxes can be explained in most of the cases by three hypotheses: Raw Material Hypothesis (White, 1998a):  The Handaxe form is directly related to the type, size and quality of raw material; Poor raw material leads to … Continue reading

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Mesolithic Pics from Portugal

Pics, made from medium sized beach pebbles from the Douro River, near Vila Nova de Gaia / Portugal. Picks can be can be found at sites of virtually any pre- and protohistoric sites in Galicia and the Northern Atlantic Fassade … Continue reading

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Northern Hessen: The Acheulean

This is a large quartzite handaxe, found in 1949 near Seigertshausen in North Hessen. The Acheulean of this area is selectively known from surface collections and the material can only be provisionally classified according to typology and patination. Important sites … Continue reading

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A Trihedral from the middle Guadalquivir and the oldest Handaxes in Europe

Populations using Acheulean ensembles occupied Europe with a significant time lag compared to Africa. They could have entered Europe by the Levantine corridor, the strait of Gibraltar or via the Bab-al-Mandab. In East-Africa first handaxes already appeared 1, 5 Ma. … Continue reading

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The Reutersruh Paleolithic

A Scraper, Levallois Point and a Tayac-Point from the Reutersruh site near Kassel (250-40 k.a BP) In 1948, Hallam L. Movius Jr. proposed a theoretical line, which separated regions of Lower Paleolithic Technocomplexes with Handaxes, from regions without such tools. … Continue reading

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