A deeper history for the humble handaxe

Anyone in love with their iPad may want to weigh it against the humble hand-axe. Modern technology comes and goes, but this simple, heavy stone, flaked to produce a sharp edge on all sides, remained in fashion for more than a million years.

If only some crafty caveman had been awarded the patent, the world's first fortune could surely have been made licensing the tool. Especially since a paleontology team reports in the current Science journal that stone tools exported themselves out of Africa to India perhaps 1.5 million years ago more than twice as long ago as previously suspected.

"Here, we present age estimates obtained from excavations at Attirampakkam, an open-air Paleolithic (prehistoric) site situated near a meandering tributary stream of the river Kortallaiyar, northwest of Chennai, in southeast India," begins the report led by Shanti Pappu of India's Sharma Centre for Heritage Education. A British archaeologist with the very Scottish-sounding name of Robert Bruce Foote found prehistoric hand axes, the first discovered in India, at the site in 1863.

Since that discovery, paleontologists have unearthed evidence that the earliest chipped stone "Acheulian" hand axes originated in Africa about 1.8 million years ago. (Simple chopping tools appear in excavation sites dating to at least 2.5 million years ago and a hot debate is cooking among paleontologists over the validity of blade marks on bones roughly 3.4 million years old that appeared last year on the cover of the journal, Nature.) The hand-axe, cleaver and associated heavy bladed stones only made their way out of Africa to modern-day Israel around 1.4 million to 780,000 years ago, and into India only about 600,000 years ago, paleontologists had thought.

Most likely, says archaeologist Robin Dennell of the United Kingdom's University of Sheffield, in a commentary accompanying the new report, those butchering tools suitable for a hunting lifestyle were carried by an early human species called Homo heidelbergensis, a sort of robust but recognizable predecessor to both modern humans and our vanished Neanderthal cousins. Modern-looking humans escaped from Africa perhaps 60,000 years ago, carrying even better tools.

But the new dates from the Indian site upset this hand-axe history, based on magnetic dating of the clay surrounding the stone tools at the dig site, about 30 feet deep. Some 780,000 years ago, the Earth's magnetic poles flipped (don't worry, no one was hurt). Iron molecules laid down earlier than that time in clays after that flip would have magnetic orientations pointing north. Instead the clay at this level has magnetic poles that correspond to 1.77 million to 1.07 million years old.

And because the 3,528 hand axes, cleavers and other tools discovered were made out of a quartz stone, they were also amenable to a kind of dating that relies on cosmic ray exposure. Until they were buried, the tools (like everything else on the surface of the planet) were exposed to cosmic rays, leaving a signature of radioactive beryllium and aluminum, which have very long half-lives on their surfaces. Even being conservative, the radioactive half-lives of these elements pin the age of the tools to about 1.5 million years ago. Much like the latest tools today, it turns out good ones are quickly exported.

"The new evidence from Attirampakkam invalidates much of (the old) scenario," Dennell concludes. The hand axe likely spread out of Africa in the hands of Homo erectus or a related early human species, long-faced fellows that were also thought the first species to master fire, far earlier than had been thought likely. Dennell writes, "this new evidence from Attirampakkam makes it all the more important that we find out what type of (human species) first brought Acheulian artifacts to South Asia."

Why? How does knowing how tools spread among our predecessors help us now? Well, tool use has long been seen as a defining feature of humanity and understanding how early humans developed along with their tools tells us something about ourselves. A Journal of Archaeological Science study this month suggests that over the last 2.6 million years the human hand evolved to handle just these sort of tools. In other words, the tools helped shape man, which seems to merit some study.

Attirampakkam's discoverer, Robert Bruce Foote, surely felt some of that fascination. Despite complaining to his friends in letters about " a solitary life in outlandish places" making his discoveries, he stayed in India to be buried in Calcutta in 1913. He left his discoveries, including the hand axe, in his will to India's Government Museum in Chennai, where they reside today.

Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to For more information about reprints & permissions , visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com . Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com