A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Spain, working with two colleagues from France and another from Germany has discovered an Obsidian handaxe-making workshop from 1.2 million years ago in the Awash ...
New archaeological research into grave goods and skeletal material from the oldest grave field in the Netherlands shows that male-female roles 7,000 years ago were less traditional than was thought. The research was conducted ...
Archaeology
Jun 30, 2022
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685
(PhysOrg.com) -- A giant African lake basin is providing information about possible migration routes and hunting practices of early humans in the Middle and Late Stone Age periods, between 150,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Archaeology
Sep 10, 2009
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A team of researchers from Japan, Hong Kong and Ethiopia has found a hand ax that they believe was made by a possibly direct human ancestor in what is now modern Ethiopia. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National ...
Greece's culture ministry says archaeologists on the island of Crete have discovered what may be evidence of one of the world's earliest sea voyages by humans.
Archaeology
Jan 3, 2011
21
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A new study suggests that Homo erectus, a precursor to modern humans, was using advanced toolmaking methods in East Africa 1.8 million years ago, at least 300,000 years earlier than previously thought. The study, published ...
Archaeology
Aug 31, 2011
10
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(Phys.org)—Anthropologist Alan Simmons of the University of Nevada has published a perspective piece in the journal Science suggesting that the Mediterranean islands were inhabited far earlier than has been thought. Rather ...
Human self-control evolved in our early ancestors, becoming particularly evident around 500,000 years ago when they developed the skills to make sophisticated tools, a new study suggests.
Archaeology
May 13, 2020
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Australian archaeologists have discovered a piece of the world's oldest axe in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Archaeology
May 10, 2016
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614
Some 3,000 years ago, 24 axes were cached in Stjørdal municipality, about 44 km east of Trondheim. They're now seeing the light of day once again.
Archaeology
May 3, 2017
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112
The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has many forms and specialized uses but generally consists of an axe head with a handle, or helve.
The earliest examples of axes have heads of stone with some form of wooden handle attached (hafted) in a method to suit the available materials and use. Axes made of copper, bronze, iron, steel appeared as these technologies developed.
The axe is an example of a simple machine, as it is a type of wedge, or dual inclined plane. This reduces the effort needed by the wood chopper. It splits the wood into two parts by the pressure concentration at the blade. The handle of the axe also acts as a lever allowing the user to increase the force at the cutting edge—not using the full length of the handle is known as choking the axe. For fine chopping using a side axe this sometimes is a positive effect, but for felling with a double bitted axe it reduces efficiency. Generally, cutting axes have a shallow wedge angle, whereas splitting axes have a deeper angle. Most axes are double beveled, i.e. symmetrical about the axis of the blade, but some specialist broadaxes have a single bevel blade, and usually an offset handle that allows them to be used for finishing work without putting the user's knuckles at risk of injury. Less common today, they were once an integral part of a joiner and carpenter's tool kit, not just a tool for use in forestry. A tool of similar origin is the billhook. However in France and Holland the billhook often replaced the axe as a joiner's bench tool.[citation needed]
Most modern axes have steel heads and wooden handles, typically hickory in the US and ash in Europe, although plastic or fiberglass handles are also common. Modern axes are specialized by use, size and form. Hafted axes with short handles designed for use with one hand are often called hand axes but the term hand axe refers to axes without handles as well. Hatchets tend to be small hafted axes often with a hammer on the back side ( the poll). As easy to make weapons, axes have frequently been used in combat.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
