Login to your Account

Do not have an account yet? Create one

Looking for something specific?

Clactonian Tools

View All

Recent archaeological research has shown that the Clactonian and the Acheaulian styles of tool manufacture were contemporary with each other and not representative of an advance in tool making technology. There are archaeological sites that have a mixture of both tool types sharing the same time period but a different location, such as at East Farm, Barnham, Suffolk. The site of a recent excavation at Ebbsfleet near Dartford, Kent has produced stone tools all of which are in the Clactonian style with no handaxes of Acheulian style present. These Clactonian implements were found with the remains of an extinct elephant which was dismembered using these tools. The Clactonian and Acheulian cultures both occupied the Lower Palaeolithic era, starting in the warmer periods of the Anglian Glacial period to the Hoxnian Interglacial, some 450,000 years to 200,000 years ago. The tools themselves were capable of performing the same functions for cutting and dismembering carcases. There was no practical advantage to the use of Clactonian or Acheulian style – the beautiful symmetry and quality of the Acheaulian implements were not necessary to perform the basic utilitarian function. The maker of the Clactonian and Acheulian tools was Homo Heidelbergensis, an early human ancestor.