From Newsgroup: talk.origins
https://www.science.org/content/article/human-ancestors-braved-england-s-ice-covered-northlands-440-000-years-ago
Hand axes are often found associated with Homo erectus (Homo
antecessor). They have a picture of an assortment with the cruder
examples similar to types found associated with Homo erectus in Africa
over a million years ago. Anthropologists really do not know what these
hand axes were used for. They became very large and sophisticated, and
when I took Antro in the 1970's some thought that they might have been
used as cores to make smaller more easily handled stone tools. They
might have been valuable enough to haul from place to place and could be
used to make other stone tools.
Many of the large ones are just so aesthetically pleasing that I thought
that they could be symbols of the makers skill and could even denote
status or be an object of sexual selection.
Ron Okimoto
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