Details

LOT 0304

'British Museum Recorded' Stone Age Homo Heidelbergensis Flint Handaxe from Happisburgh

LOWER PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD, CIRCA 600,000-250,000 B.P.

3 1/8 in. (100 grams, 79 mm).

Small sub-cordate handaxe of Wymer's type G, of glassy black flint with a few paler inclusions towards the butt; strip of light grey cortex remaining to the dorsal face at this end; flake scars appearing to be soft hammer struck with quite thin and invasive removals.

Provenance

Found Happisburgh, Norfolk, UK, Tuesday 1st October 2019 - Saturday 30th November 2019.
Acquired from the finder Mr P Macro.

Accompanied by a copy of the British Museum's Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) report no.NMS-3AE638.

Literature

Cf. Wymer, J.J., The Lower Paleolithic Occupation of Britain, London, 1999

Footnotes

Discovery by P Macro after the 'Beast from the East Storm', which stripped the beach of the sand and helped to erode the Palaeolithic artefacts from the ancient Thames river bed. During the time the artefacts were dropped, the Thames ran through North Norfolk and what is now Happisburgh before it was pushed down to its current position in London via the Ice Age glacial melts. The site of Happisburgh in Norfolk has helped to push the history of inhabitation of the British Isles back by 200,000 making it a site of special importance.
The blank for this piece was probably a large struck primary flake; the ventral face (non-cortical side) has an unmodified section of this visible still, and ripples and fissures are observable. The point has a tranchet blow to the ventral face (edge type vi) to sharpen it, the dorsal face has been effectively thinned, making the lateral cutting edges very acute and sharp. This thinning has produced a slight curve to the point when viewed from the side.