Acheulean Cleaver
Butchery tool
Acheulean
In Europe, 800 000 to 300 000 years
Bifaces with a wide cutting edge are much more frequent than in Europe. In southern Africa they are referred to as bevels, although I prefer the term cleaver.
H. Breuil, Premières impressions de voyage sur la préhistoire sud-africaine. L’Anthropologie, 1930
Commentary :
During the Acheulean, cleavers coexist with bifaces, and are present throughout Eurasia.
These tools are made on large flakes detached from blocks, or large pebbles of hard rock.
Their shaping preserves an unmodified edge at their functional end.
The cleaver allowed Homo erectus groups to both hunt, and scavenge.