An axe, sometimes spelled ax in American English, is an implement that has been used for thousands of years to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, and as a weapon. It generally consists of a head with a sharpened blade, also called a bit, attached to a handle, also called a haft or helve, and takes many forms suited to different specialized uses. Before the modern axe, the stone-age hand axe with no handle was used for roughly 1.5 million years, and hafted axes with a handle date back at least 46,000 years among Indigenous Australians; the earliest hafted axes carried stone heads fitted to a wooden handle, and later axes were made of copper, bronze, iron and steel as those technologies developed.
Facts
Introduced When (Circa)Circa 1.6 million years ago (early Oldowan hand axes); later examples about 1.4 million years ago in Southern Ethiopia and 1.2 million years ago at Olduvai Gorge. 1 OriginEarly hand axes without handles are known from East Africa (Southern Ethiopia and Olduvai Gorge); axes fitted with a haft or handle are first known much later, from the Mesolithic period, about 6000 BC. 1 Introduced era (class) Connections
In the Other Atlases
Era Of Origin
Also in History Atlas: the era this subject comes from.
Also in History Atlas: the era this subject comes from.
Also in History Atlas: the era this subject comes from.
Sources
1. Axe (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationHistory section, Oldowan hand axes paragraph
Early examples of hand axes date back to 1.6 mya in the later Oldowan, in Southern Ethiopia around 1.4 mya, and in 1.2 mya deposits in Olduvai Gorge.
History section, hafted axes paragraph
Hafted axes are first known from the Mesolithic period (c. 6000 BC).
Lead section
the stone-age hand axe without a handle was used from 1.5 million years BP
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