Handaxes and the Pick-Chopper Industry of Pleistocene China

Abstract

The presence of handaxes (bifaces; Large Cutting Tools) in Paleolithic industries in China and elsewhere in East Asia and their relationship with western Acheulian bifaces have been discussed and debated for a long time. Most researchers concur that handaxes occur in some Paleolithic industries in certain regions of central and south China. However, Chinese handaxes exhibit some unique characteristics compared with their western Acheulian counterparts, either in terms of their quantity in lithic assemblages or based upon their specific technological and morphological features. Analyses indicate that most Chinese handaxes are variants of picks, a type of large digging tool found in Pick-Chopper Industries over a vast region, complementary to choppers, which are a kind of large cutting tool produced and used in the region for a long period of time. Raw material impact, adaptation to certain habitat, close ties with the pebble tool tradition, and the relative isolation of local populations may all have contributed to the uniqueness and diversity of this type of lithic artifact in the region. Such stone tools may have played very important roles in human survival and adaptation in the intermontane basins and woodlands in tropical and subtropical environments in central and south China throughout the Pleistocene.