Handaxes and the social landscapes of the Lower Palaeolithic

Key project information

Duration

January 2023 – April 2026

Contact details

Email: [email protected]

Partners

Durham University
University College London

Supported by

Arts and Humanities Research Council

Grant number

AH/W009951/1

What can handaxes tell us about Neanderthal society, cognition and behaviour in the deep past?

Handaxes are iconic stone tools used by human ancestors in the Lower Palaeolithic period and were made in similar ways for hundreds of thousands of years. Their creation was shaped by the intended use, available stone, as well as the skill, experience and inherited knowledge of the makers.

The various shapes of handaxes can tell us about traditions of manufacture and cultural differences between groups of early Neanderthals who lived in Britain and elsewhere in Europe between c. 600,000 and 250,000 years ago. The team will discover to what extent these groups used handaxes to signal their individual and collective identities.

By 3D recording of handaxes from key sites, this project will build a new database of handaxe shapes, highlighting how the similarities and differences in handaxe form can create a new framework for understanding the British Lower Palaeolithic period.

About the project

Museums across Britain look after large numbers of handaxes with by far the largest collection at the British Museum. These distinctive-shaped objects are used as evidence of the different time periods when people lived in Britain. During the Lower Palaeolithic the climate was punctuated by a series of ice ages and people were only present during the warmer periods between the ice ages known as interglacials.

The project is studying changes in handaxe style from one interglacial to the next, and within each interglacial to identify regional forms that might reflect different cultural groups. The research will show how Neanderthal peoples carefully chose their raw materials, and the specific ways the tools were designed and made. As well as identifying cultural groups, the study will allow the team to draw new inferences about the growing influence of social norms on handaxe form.

The research is using state-of-the-art scanning and imaging technologies to create detailed 3D models of around 3,800 stone tools in the British Museum collection and those of other museums from 38 sites over a 300,000-year period.

Aims

This project will:

Produce a definitive digital database of handaxe assemblages using state-of-the-art 3D scanning technologies to facilitate newly developed 3D methods of analyses.
Establish a more detailed understanding of handaxe variation in the British Lower Palaeolithic.
Quantify the effects on variation of rock type and form, shaping techniques and skill, reduction intensity, function, landscape context and design.
Contribute to current research on early human social development, drawing on psychological models for the emergence of more complex group behaviour.
Explore how social norms as expressed through handaxe forms helped group cohesion and interaction.
Improve accessibility and reduce the carbon footprint of stone tool analysis through the availability of a high-resolution handaxe scan database.