Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c6.s1.29

c6.s1.29

3. *Handaxes*. These are pear-shaped or oval implements, sometimes of considerable size, a foot or more in length, worked to an edge on both sides of a core or occasionally a flake. The more primitive examples appear to have been made in a fashion similar to that of the Clactonian flakes; their French category is 'Abbevillian' (formerly 'Chellian'), but in India the term is liable to imply a greater measure of precision than the coarse material used there justifies. On the other hand the best Indian handaxes, showing, it seems, controlled flaking produced by the use of a bone or wooden mallet, may justifiably borrow the name 'Acheulian' from the more evolved French category. With the Acheulian handaxes are associated cleavers, oblong or rhomboidal in outline and with a wide chisel-edge, made by the same techniques. Levallois flakes partially overlapped the Acheulian handaxes but also outlasted them. Indian handaxes, with or without cleavers, are commonly known collectively as the 'Madras industry', from the region where they were first recognized, but the name bears no relation to the distribution of the type.