One of the oldest man-made artefacts in the museum’s collection, this flint handaxe is classified as Acheulean (named after a French type-site) and is about 500,000 years old. This period of the Old Stone Age coincided with the Anglian glaciation. The axe is rolled and frost-cracked and was found on a gravel terrace where it had been redeposited by the river, there are no in situ Palaeolithic sites or caves in West Berkshire. Further information about the archaeological site is available on the HER
http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MWB10725&resourceID=1030
HER – The Historic Environment Record (HER) is a register of all known archaeological and historical sites in the unitary authority of West Berkshire.
Period: c 700,000-10,000 BC
Place: Hamstead Marshall
