Handaxe

3D Model

Stone Handaxe

Paleolithic, between 300,000 and 150,000 years old

Found near Hilton, Derbyshire

This stone tool was found near Hilton in the Trent Valley in the 1900s. It was made by an early human species, such as Homo heidelbergensis or Homo neanderthalensis, 150,000-300,000 years ago

Handaxes first appear in Africa around 1.8 million years ago, and continued to be used for over a million years.

These are deliberately shaped tools that require skill to make. While they were primarily used for butchering animals, handaxes had a wide range of purposes and have been described as the “Paleolithic Swiss Army knife.”

Pointed handaxe, quartzite, 140 mm x 85 mm. Brown quartzite with diagonal stripes of purplish red.

3D Scanned by Iva Minkova and Dr Susanna Sherwin, Classics and Archaeology Department, University of Nottingham Part of an N-MESH collaboration. Scanned using an using the Artec Space Spider, processed in Artec Studio 18