Three Pre-Historic, Lower Palaeolithic Flint Stone Tools (200 to 100 France)

Provenance: From the collection of the late Dick Moy, Greenwich, London

The stone age technologists progressively improved the effectiveness of the hand-axe. The early Abbevillian type in Europe had some serious defects due to the primitive technique used to flake them. Although the tool maker had a mental picture of the reasonably efficient tool he wanted to produce, his technique was too primitive to allow him to control the shape of the implement in anything but a general way.
New techniques gradually developed and from them came the Acheulian hand-axe with its straight cutting edge, tapering section and two smooth faces. This flint tool was created by the technique of detaching long shallow flakes with blows of a ‘baton’ striking very close to the tool’s edge. This produced a less clumsy, thick sectioned hand-axe and one more symmetrically shaped. Some of these later Acheulian hand-axes are the most perfect expression of the core tool concept.

Three Pre-Historic, Lower Palaeolithic Flint Stone Tools
The largest marked ‘Pick. Double ended. Transition. Somme Gravels. Abb 1841’ and to the reverse ‘27’
The larger Acheulian Biface marked: ‘Somme Gravels. Abbeville’ and to the reverse ‘16’
The smaller Acheulian Biface marked ‘Abbeville’
Circa 200-100’000 years old

Sizes: 19cm long – 7½ ins long (max.)
10cm long – 4 ins long (min.)