Acheulean Hand Axe
Item
- Title
- Acheulean Hand Axe
- Type of object
- Archaeological artifact
- Material
- Red ironstone
- Category
- Historical Item
- Maker
- Unknown
- Era
- Lower Paleolithic
- Date Created
- ca. one million years BP
- Date Modified
- ca. 999,000 years BP
- Region and/or country
- Kimberley, South Africa
- Short Overview
- Million-year-old stone handaxe that was reknapped, or "mended," during its original use period
- Longer description
- Archaeologists excavated this stone tool at the Wonderwerk Cave site in South Africa. Close study reveals two distinct series of “cuts,” or flake removals. It was initially shaped by a series of large, shallow removals around its tapered end and later reworked through a series of deeper removals that were added to create a more dramatic point. This is an example of conservation from the distant past: the later removals were presumably made when the edge had become blunt, possibly by a different individual from the one who first shaped it, in order to preserve its function as a tool. (Label copy from Conserving Active Matter, Bard Graduate Center Gallery, May - July 2022). Wonderwerk Cave is the oldest known cave occupation in the world, preserving an intact sequence of sediments that accumulated very gradually over a period stretching back almost two million years.
- Is Part Of
- https://exhibitions.bgc.bard.edu/cam/acheulean-hand-ax/
- Source
- McGregor Museum, Kimberley, South Africa
- Item sets
- Objects
This item was submitted on July 24, 2022 by [anonymous user] using the form “Application Form for Objects” on the site “Visible Mending”: https://visiblemending.org/s/world
Click here to view the collected data.