🪨 Stone tool era 🪨 Prehistoric tool culture

Acheulean

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A type of ancient stone tools used by early humans, especially large hand axes

noun
/əˈʃuːliən/

Specialized

: industria acheulense

The Acheulean tool industry is characterized by its finely crafted bifacial handaxes that date back over 1 million years.

Examples

Archaeologists discovered several well-preserved Acheulean handaxes during their excavation of the ancient site.
Outside Africa, the earliest hand axes whose dating is uncontested are also Acheulean and are about 1.4 million years old.

Academic text (2003)
Various stone tools from the Acheulean period have provided valuable insights into the lives of early humans.

Surface Forms

Acheulean singular

Acheuleans plural

Morphology

Acheulean = Acheule + ean

Formed from a place-name base plus the relational suffix '-ean' to name a specific archaeological industry; the meaning is specialized and not derivable by a typical learner from the parts.

Etymology

Acheulean names a prehistoric stone-tool culture and takes its name from the French place Saint-Acheul, where many of these hand axes were first found. So the Acheulean simply means the group of tools 'from Acheul', which is why the name is used for those early hand axes.