CORE-BIFACE TOOLS
The next tradition we’ll look at is the core or biface one. The tools are large pear-shaped pieces of stone trimmed flat on the two opposite sides or “faces.” Hence “biface” has been used to describe these tools. The front view is like that of a pear with a rather pointed top, and the back view looks almost exactly the same. Look at them side on, and you can see that the front and back faces are the same and have been trimmed to a thin tip. The real purpose in trimming down the two faces was to get a good cutting edge all around. You can see all this in the illustration.
ABBEVILLIAN BIFACE
We have very little idea of the way in which these core-bifaces were used. They have been called “hand axes,” but this probably gives the wrong idea, for an ax, to us, is not a pointed tool. All of these early tools must have been used for a number of jobs—chopping, scraping, cutting, hitting, picking, and prying. Since the core-bifaces tend to be pointed, it seems likely that they were used for hitting, picking, and prying. But they have rough cutting edges, so they could have been used for chopping, scraping, and cutting.