This large lithic handaxe was made out Brandon Black Flint (one of the finet knapping stone in the world) by John Lord, the ex-curator of Grimes Graves, the sprawling Lower Paleolithic mining site in Norfolk County (near Brandon) in the United Kingdom. John Lord is the author of the excellent small book " The Nature and Subsequent Uses of Flint: The Basics of Lithic Technology ". This axe is modeled after one found at Hoxne in the late 18th century which first caused speculation that the stone tools showing up all over Europe were actually older - - much, much, much older - - than the Bible version of history envisioned, and this speculation about man's antiquity soon blossomed exponentially. Darwin was to chime in soon enough.

Notice that Lord, who held workshops in knapping, has carefully allowed a bit of the white cortex of the original flint nodule to remain to illustrate how the knapping developed. The tools that he used were exclusively those used in ancient England, viz., hammerstones, antler hammers and antler tines, the last for pressure flaking.