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AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR
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POUND STERLING
Product Description
SEE MORE ACHEULEAN STONE AGE TOOLS
This RARE African Acheulian prehistoric stone tool is a large UNIFACIAL SIDE SCRAPER. This tool was made and used by Homo ergaster (African Homo erectus) over a half a million years ago! It was surface-collected from an exposed Acheulean site in the Sahara Desert of Northwest Africa. This Lower Paleolithic tool represents the first intelligent design tool type known to science, that was made by early humans. Prior to these Saharan Acheulian tools, only crude pebble tools existed in the human fossil record.
Very seldom seen in private collections, Acheulean flake tools from Africa are extremely rare with most Acheulean specimens collected being hand axes. This is a type of flake tool, fashioned by a large flake struck from an even larger tool core. Edge photos show extreme wind erosion but secondary flaking all down the cutting edge is plainly visible. Desert patina and wind erosion is seen in the "desert varnish" sheen, caused by thousands of years of exposure to the blowing desert sands. A scarce tool from Africa's Lower Paleolithic and a perfect accompaniment to a collection of hand axes from the same era and region.
HISTORY
FLAKE TOOLS from the SAHARAN ACHEULEAN are much more rare then their Saharan Acheulean HAND AXE counterparts. While handaxes are rather obvious in design and easy to recognize when collecting on a site, smaller flake tools have less obvious features at first glance, and easily blend in with surrounding scrap flakes and natural stones. Along with hand axes, flake scrapers were vital tools used by Homo erectus around the world, for butchering hunted game, as well as scrape hides and fashion objects from wood and bone.