Things Ain't Always What They Seem to be:a Cautionary Tale Concerning a 'Hand-axe'

摘要

In June 2007 David Summers was digging in his garden atWroughton (NGR SU 14778117), just south of Swindon,Wiltshire, when he noticed a small bifacial flint tool.Realising that it was something interesting he e-mailedphotographs to Devizes Museum where the now-retiredcurator, Paul Robinson, identified it as a LowerPalaeolithic hand-axe. The implement is a small pointedbifacial tool, conforming exactly to Wymer's (1968) typeF hand-axes; it measures 60 mm long, 47 mm wide and is29 mm thick. The object is unrolled, suggesting that it hadnot moved far from the point where it was dropped, but isheavily stained. Nothing like it was known from theimmediate area although hand-axes have been recordedfrom the summit of Hackpen Hill, 7 km to the south (Roe1968) with others, including small implements, from oneof the most prolific sites in Britain at Knowle Farm (Roe1968) on the edge of Savernake Forest.