Abbevillian
[CP]Now obsolete, this term was originally proposed by Abbé Breuil in ad 1939 to describe the pre‐Acheulian flint industries of western Europe on the basis of material from Abbeville in France. Also ...
biface
[De]General term referring to a stone core tool that is usually pointed at one end and flaked on both flat faces until thin and sharp‐edged. Mainly found in Palaeolithic tool industries, and the ...
Bilzingsleben
Is an open-air Lower Paleolithic lakeshore site at Steinrinne in eastern Germany, near the confluence of the Wipper and Wirbelbach rivers. It first became known as an old quarry with ...
Boxgrove man
A fossil hominid of the Middle Pleistocene period, whose fragmentary remains were found at Boxgrove near Chichester, SE England, in 1993 and 1995. Dated (controversially) to about 500,000 years ago, ...
Clactonian
Of, relating to, or denoting a Lower Palaeolithic culture represented by flint implements found at Clacton-on-Sea in SE England, dated to about 250,000–200,000 years ago.
cleaver
[Ar]Roughly U‐shaped stone tool with a transverse cutting edge. Acheulian bifacial cleavers resemble truncated handaxes with a straight or oblique edge instead of a point. On flake cleavers the ...
cylindrical hammer technique
[De]Removal of shallow flakes in the manufacture of handaxes and other tools, by using an implement of a softer material (wood or bone) than the tool itself. Characteristic of the Acheulian and later ...
Fauresmith
[CP]A stoneworking industry found in south and east Africa related to the late Acheulian, characterized by small pointed and neatly made handaxes, and named after a site in the Orange Free State. At ...
Homo erectus
[Sp]An early and long‐lived human species (the name means ‘upright man’) that appeared about 1.8 million years ago and survived until at least 250 000 years ago. It is the first human species found ...
Homo sapiens
[Sp]Modern humans. Although it is generally believed that this species emerged about 40 000 years ago, claims of exceptionally early finds dating back to between 130 000 and 70 000 years ago have ...
Hoxnian
An interglacial period and a series of temperate-climate deposits named after Hoxne, Suffolk, England, with a characteristic vegetational sequence that occurs in tills of the earliest glacial stages, ...
Kalambo Falls
This spectacular 722 foot (220 m) single-drop waterfall lies on the frontier between Zambia and Tanzania, near the southeastern corner of Lake Tanganyika. It has been formed by the Kalambo ...
Leakey, Louis(1903–1972) and Mary (b. 1913),
Pioneered archaeological and human evolutionary research in East Africa, most notably in Kenya and Tanzania. They demonstrated that East Africa was a major “cradle of humankind” that yielded much ...
Olduvai Gorge
A gorge in northern Tanzania, in which the exposed strata contain numerous fossils (especially hominids) spanning the full range of the Pleistocene period.
Olorgesaillie
Is an Acheulian hand-axe site in southern Kenya, about 34 miles (55 km) southwest of Nairobi, which dates to about half a million years ago. The artifactrich location was discovered ...
ovate
[Ar]A type of Acheulian bifacially worked handaxe with an oval or elliptical shape. Most are relatively thin in cross‐section, and have either a flat or deliberately twisted profile.
Palaeolithic
The Old Stone Age, lasting in Europe from about 2.5 million to 9000 years ago, during which humans used primitive stone tools made by chipping stones and flints.
Sangoan Culture
[CP]Middle Palaeolithic, post‐Acheulian, stoneworking industry found in equatorial and southeastern Africa, named after the type‐site of Sango Bay on Lake Victoria, Uganda. The industry is ...
Stone Technology
The human lineage has employed stone technology as a vital part of its adaptive strategy throughout most of the past 2 to 3 million years. The manufacture and use of ...
Swanscombe, Kent, England
[Si]A gravel pit in the lower Thames Valley which preserved a series of river terraces containing useful environmental evidence, abundant mollusc and faunal remains, and largeassemblages of Lower ...
