Archaeologists Find Ice Age Axe So Large It's Difficult To Pick Up

An enormous, ancient handaxe, thought to be at least 300,000 years old, has been discovered in Kent in Southeast England during excavations ahead of the construction of a new school.

Researchers from University College London Archaeology South-East say that the tool, which is almost too big to handle, and was found along with other handaxes, is one of the largest of its kind ever to be discovered in Britain.

"We think these tools might date from an interglacial around 300 to 330,000 years ago," senior archaeologist, Letty Ingrey, from the University College London Institute of Archaeology, told Newsweek. "At this time, we had early Neanderthal people inhabiting Britain, but there might have been other archaic human species around also. Unfortunately, we don't have any fossil evidence from the site so can't be sure exactly who was making these tools."

Handaxes have been found throughout Africa and Europe at sites dating from 1.7 million to 300,000 years ago.

"[They] would have been used as cutting tools for activities such as butchering animals or cutting meat," Ingrey said. "During this period people may have been hunting animals like horse, red deer and even straight-tusked elephants."

At this period in our history, our ancestors had developed an array of tools specialized for different hunting functions.

"The handaxes would have been part of a wider tool kit that would have included things like sharp flakes and scrapers," Ingrey said. "We only have stone tools preserved at the site (made from flint), but we know from other sites that people at this time would have had wooded spears and potentially other tools made from bone or wood that just haven't survived on this site."

Handaxes are found fairly frequently at archaeological sites from this period, but the large one found recently in Kent is unusual.

"What is really distinctive about the largest of the handaxes we found was its size," Ingrey said. "At 29.6 centimetres [nearly a foot long] it is the third-longest from Britain…We're not entirely sure why people were making these massive handaxes as they seem too big to be easily used."

The site in question was only discovered recently, during excavations ahead of building work for a the Maritime Academy School in Frindsbury, Kent.

"We started fieldwork and found the first artifacts in 2021, and finished fieldwork earlier this year," Ingrey said. "We have over 800 artifacts from this site. However, analysis of the collection and the site is still ongoing so we'll be sharing information on the rest of the collection in the future."

Details of the findings so far have been published in the journal Internet Archaeology.