JEDDAH: A study of archaeological sites in the Arabian Peninsula has shown that the
Acheulean civilization had one of the longest lasting tool-making traditions in prehistory, according to research published in Scientific Reports magazine.
(2008): "The
Acheulean massive scrapers of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov-a product of the biface chalne operatoire", Journal of Human Evolution, 55 (4), pp.
The
Acheulean stone tools (mentioned earlier) are dealt with in chapter 2 ("1,000,000 Years Ago").
The technique also reached Europe around 250,000 years ago; the Neanderthals, until they disappeared, used a mix of
Acheulean and Mousterian techniques.
And he shoots down the
Acheulean industry, best known for teardrop-shaped stone hand axes dating to as early as 1.7 million years ago.
Acheulean hand axes are a bit mysterious because they are pointed but often sharp all the way around their ovular form, so there is no way to hold one without cutting yourself, and yet they're not fit for the end of a spear, either.
For example the Stone Age hand-axe, the
Acheulean biface, used by our ancestors 500,000 years ago, had been in use unchanged for more than a million years.
The 1.7-million-year-old
Acheulean hand axes were some of the first stone tools.
And so the term
Acheulean came to describe one of the most enduring and widespread of archaeological cultural traditions.