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.
FLAKE TOOLS
The third tradition is the flake tradition. The idea was to get a tool with a good cutting edge by simply knocking a nice large flake off a big block of stone. You had to break off the flake in such a way that it was broad and thin, and also had a good sharp cutting edge. Once you really got on to the trick of doing it, this was probably a simpler way to make a good cutting tool than preparing a biface. You have to know how, though; I’ve tried it and have mashed my fingers more than once.
The flake tools look as if they were meant mainly for chopping, scraping, and cutting jobs. When one made a flake tool, the idea seems to have been to produce a broad, sharp, cutting edge.
CLACTONIAN FLAKE
The core-biface and the flake traditions were spread, from earliest times, over much of Europe, Africa, and western Asia. The map on [page 52] shows the general area. Over much of this great region there was flint. Both of these traditions seem well adapted to flint, although good core-bifaces and flakes were made from other kinds of stone, especially in Africa south of the Sahara.
CHOPPERS AND ADZE-LIKE TOOLS
The fourth early tradition is found in southern and eastern Asia, from northwestern India through Java and Burma into China. Father Maringer recently reported an early group of tools in Japan, which most resemble those of Java, called Patjitanian. The prehistoric men in this general area mostly used quartz and tuff and even petrified wood for their stone tools (see illustration, [p. 46]).