Editing Hand axe (section)

==Terminology==
The four classes of hand axe are:{{citation needed|date=June 2015}}

# Large, thick hand axes reduced from cores or thick flakes, referred to as [[blank (archaeology)|blanks]]
# Thinned blanks. While form remains rough and uncertain, an effort has been made to reduce the thickness of the flake or core
# Either a preform or crude formalized tool, such as an [[adze]]
# Finer formalized tool types such as [[projectile point]]s and fine bifaces

While Class 4 hand axes are referred to as "formalized tools", bifaces from any stage of a [[lithic reduction]] sequence may be used as tools. (Other biface typologies make five divisions rather than four.{{Citation needed|date=January 2017}})

French [[antiquarian]] André Vayson de Pradenne introduced the word {{lang|fr|biface}} in 1920.<ref>{{cite journal |id={{INIST|GEODEBRGMFR1833280}} |last=Vayson de Pradenne |first= André |title=La plus ancienne industrie de Saint-Acheul |journal=L'Anthropologie |volume=30 |year=1920 |pages=441–496 }}</ref> This term co-exists with the more popular ''hand axe'' ({{lang|fr|coup de poing}}), that was coined by [[Gabriel de Mortillet]] much earlier.<ref>{{cite book|last=de Mortillet|first= Gabriel|author-link=Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet|title=Le Préhistorique. Antiquité de l'homme|year=1883|publisher=Bibliothèque des Sciences Contemporaines. Paris|page=148}}</ref> The continued use of the word biface by [[François Bordes]] and Lionel Balout supported its use in France and Spain, where it replaced the term ''hand axe''. Use of the expression ''hand axe'' has continued in English as the equivalent of the French {{lang|fr|biface}} ({{lang|es|bifaz}} in Spanish), while biface applies more generally for any piece that has been carved on both sides by the removal of shallow or deep flakes.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511810244 |title=Lithics |date=2005 |last1=Andrefsky, Jr |first1=William |isbn=978-0-521-61500-6 |pages=177–199 }}</ref> The expression {{lang|de|Faustkeil}} is used in [[German language|German]]; it can be literally translated as hand axe, although in a stricter sense it means "fist wedge". It is the same in [[Dutch language|Dutch]] where the expression used is {{lang|nl|vuistbijl}} which literally means "fist axe". The same locution occurs in other languages.{{Weasel inline|date=January 2017}}

However, the general impression of these tools was based on ideal (or classic) pieces that were of such perfect shape that they caught the attention of non-experts. Their [[Typology (archaeology)|typology]] broadened the term's meaning. Biface hand axes and bifacial lithic items are distinguished. A hand axe need not be a bifacial item and many bifacial items are not hand axes. Nor were hand axes and bifacial items exclusive to the Lower Palaeolithic period in the Old World. They appear throughout the world and in many different pre-historical epochs, without necessarily implying an ancient origin. Lithic typology is not a reliable chronological reference and was abandoned as a dating system. Examples of this include the "quasi-bifaces" that sometimes appear in strata from the [[Gravettian]], [[Solutrean]] and [[Magdalenian]] periods in France and Spain, the crude bifacial pieces of the [[Lupemban culture]] ([[10th millennium BC|9000&nbsp;B.C.]]) or the [[wikt:pyriform|pyriform]] tools found near [[Sagua La Grande]] in [[Cuba]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://arqueologicas.tripod.com/bifaces.html|title=Bifaces en el paleolitico de Sagua|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|website= arqueologia de sabeneque|access-date=5 October 2018}}</ref> The word ''biface'' refers to something different in English than {{lang|fr|biface}} in French or {{lang|es|bifaz}} in Spanish, which could lead to many misunderstandings.{{citation needed|date=January 2017}} Bifacially carved cutting tools, similar to hand axes, were used to clear scrub vegetation throughout the [[Neolithic]] and [[Chalcolithic]] periods. These tools are similar to more modern [[adze]]s and were a cheaper alternative to polished axes. The modern day villages along the [[Sepik]] river in [[New Guinea]] continue to use tools that are virtually identical to hand axes to clear forest. "The term ''biface'' should be reserved for items from before the Würm II-III{{Clarify|date=January 2017}} [[Stadial|interstadial]]",<ref name=benito>{{cite journal|last=Benito del Rey|first= Luis|title=Aportación a un estudio tecnomorfológico del bifaz, útil del Paleolítico Inferior y Medio: Studia Zamorensia|journal=Studia Zamorensia / Philologica|year=1982|volume=III|publisher=Ediciones de la Universidad de Salamanca, Colegio Universitario de Zamora|issn=0211-1837|pages=305–323}}</ref> although certain later objects could ''exceptionally'' be called bifaces.{{sfn|Benito del Rey|1982|page=305, note 1}}

''Hand axe'' does not relate to ''[[axe]]'', which was overused in lithic typology to describe a wide variety of stone tools.{{citation needed|date=January 2017}} At the time the use of such items was not understood. In the particular case of Palaeolithic hand axes the term axe is an inadequate description. Lionel Balout stated, "the term should be rejected as an erroneous interpretation of these objects that are not 'axes{{' "}}.<ref name=balout>{{cite journal|last=Balout|first= Lionel|title=Procédés d'analyse et questions de terminologie dans l'étude des ensembles industriels du Paléolithique inférieur en Afrique du nord|year=1967|journal=Background to Evolution in Africa|publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]|editor1=Walter W. Bishop|editor2=J. Desmond Clark|pages=701–735}}</ref> Subsequent studies supported this idea, particularly those examining the signs of use.<ref>An alternative definition can be found on [http://www.winchkler.com.ar/Bb.htm#biface Biface] on [http://www.winchkler.com.ar/ Diccionario de uso para descripción de objetos líticos] by Doctor Giovanna Winchkler in Spanish.</ref>