English: An incomplete flint handaxe of Lower and / or Middle Palaeolithic dating (c. 800, 000 BC to c. 40,000 BC).

The biface exhibits working on both interior (upper) and exterior (lower) faces, making it a biface handaxe (Graf, A., 2004, 84). The biface has a trapezoidal shape with a thick rounded profile. Approximately 60% of the surface has been worked, with the original surface or cortex covering the remaining 40% of the surface.

Cortex can be seen on both the dorsal and ventral sides, but mostly in the ventral's bottom right corner, from which the light grey cortex can be seen to envelop the right half of the butt, the bottom half of the right side and extending in a thin line angled towards the tip on the dorsal face. The cortex can also be seen to make up the majority of the tip visible on the ventral face. The rest of the biface is an orange/brown in colour, with ares that have been broken away showing an inner core of yellow/brown flint. Notably the right side of the dorsal face from butt to roughly a third from the tip, possibly a quarter of the handaxe. Also the upper left of the ventral face and the upper section of that side has been broken away. The striking platform may have been on the interior bottom right corner and the bulb of percussion towards the middle center of that face, possibly being a part of the hammered flat raised central area. Just below the hammered area and the butt a section, roughly 15 mm wide has been knapped, creating a ridge. The edges have been visibly knapped, with retouch marks on both sides just below the tip as well as heavy knapping on the upper right side of the dorsal side, noticeable as a concave indent in the centrally pointed ridge of that face; further retouch marks can be seen around this indent. An errete has been made to the left of the tip on the dorsal side finishing just before the central ridge. The knapping and retouch marks can be seen as reasonably fresh though the flint has had significant damage possibly due to plowing.

Length: 83.92 mm
Width: 62.14 mm
Thickness: 35.36 mm
Weight: 145 g

Glossary:
Errete: Flake removal resulting in a concave depression.

Reference:
Graf, A., 2004. 'A cause for wonder: preliminary observations on further Palaeolithic surface finds by Ron Waite from around Nuneaton, Warwickshire'. Lithics - Journal of the Lithic Studies Society. 78-100.