Science / Medicine : Stone Age Ax Found in Greece

A Boston University archeologist got lucky while wandering in Greece last month, finding a Stone Age hand ax without having to dig. The white flint ax is the oldest human tool found in Greece, indicating people lived there as long as a half-million years ago, archeologist James R. Wiseman of Boston University said last week.

Curtis Runnels of BU found the hand ax June 3 near the coastal city of Nikopolis about 180 miles west of Athens. As the team walked on an ancient lake bed, Runnels spotted the tip of the tool protruding from the wall of a gully.

The ax, which resembles an oversized arrowhead, was found embedded in an eroded gully which allowed scientists to date it from the Lower Paleolithic period of the early Ice Age about 200,000 to 500,000 years ago. The new artifact is a type of Acheulean hand ax, so named because many were found in the early 19th Century near the French city of St. Acheul.

The axes were formed by flaking off chips to form a point and two sharp edges but their precise purpose is not known. Since they have flat backs which fit neatly into the palm, scientists speculate they were used for digging and skinning animals.