Acheulian

/ əˈʃuːlɪən; -jən /

noun

1. (in Europe) the period in the Lower Palaeolithic following the Abbevillian, represented by the use of soft hammerstones in hand axe production made of chipped stone, bone, antler, or wood. The Acheulian dates from the Riss glaciation
2. (in Africa) the period represented by every stage of hand axe development

adjective

1. of or relating to this period

Acheulian

/ ə-sho̅o̅′lē-ən /

1. Relating to a stage of tool culture of the Lower Paleolithic Period, dating from around 1.5 million to 150,000 years ago, characterized especially by flaked bifacial hand axes, cleavers, and other core tools . The earliest Acheulian tools have been found at African sites associated with Homo erectus fossils. Later examples have been found at numerous sites in the Middle East, Europe, and western and southern Asia.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Acheulian¹

C20: after St Acheul, town in northern France

Example Sentences

“Our experiment suggests that it would have been very difficult for knowledge of how to manufacture Homo erectus’s Acheulian stone tools to spread without a simple form of language. The study also demonstrates that stone toolmaking would had created a selection pressure favouring increased linguistic capabilities,” he said.

From The Guardian

Some researchers suspected that this wave of Homo sapiens expanded so rapidly because they were armed with advanced stone tools superior to those of the earlier Acheulian culture, which is defined by bulky stone hand-axes and cleavers.

From National Geographic

But in 2011, their efforts massively paid off, when they announced the discovery of Acheulian tools at Attirampakkam that are more than a million years old, far older than other similar sites in India.

From National Geographic

To Pappu’s delight, her colleagues also found artifacts in the sediments above the Acheulian layers.

From National Geographic

More work will be needed to distinguish between these scenarios, but India’s fossil sites surely contain additional clues, Pappu says: “There are very few excavated or dated Acheulian and Middle Palaeolithic sites in India. As the number of research projects increases, I am pretty confident that new surprises will arise.”

From National Geographic