This heart-shaped axe, stained deep red, may already have been old long before being swept into Ice Age deposits around half a million years ago.
It’s a heavily rolled Lower–Middle Palaeolithic biface, probably a handaxe, recovered close to the surface of the natural geology in Suffolk. It has the classic lenticular to cordiform form, with one face worked centripetally and opposed removals on the other.
Finds of this age are exceptionally rare away from river valleys in Suffolk; most Palaeolithic handaxes come from river gravels, making one from glacial clays highly unusual.
The axe will feature in an article to be published soon in Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute for Archaeology & History.
