The Acheulean handaxe tradition emerges in East Africa
- Date
- c. 1.76 million years ago
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- East Africa (Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania)
- Era
- Prehistory
- Significance
Around 1.76 million years ago, toolmakers at Kokiselei 4 west of Lake Turkana in Kenya were shaping large, bifacially flaked teardrop handaxes and cleavers — the hallmark of the Acheulean industry, named after Saint-Acheul in France.
Comparable early assemblages occur at Konso in Ethiopia and at FLK West in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, with claims pushing the tradition close to 1.95 million years ago. The Acheulean marks a major cognitive and technological advance over the simpler Oldowan flakes that preceded it: makers worked a core to a predetermined symmetrical shape, holding a mental template and investing far more planning, skill and time. Most likely produced by Homo erectus, the handaxe became the longest-used tool design in human history, persisting with remarkable conservatism for well over a million years and spreading across Africa, the Near East, Europe and South Asia. Its standardisation across vast distances and timespans is a central puzzle in palaeoanthropology, raising questions about social learning, manual dexterity and possibly aesthetic sense among early humans.
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