About

The Digital Technologies project is a major, 3-year initiative funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (grant reference: AH/W009951). Conducted by a collaborative team from Durham University, the British Museum, University College London and the Australian National University, it aims to re-evaluate early human cultural evolution within the Middle Pleistocene archaeological record of Britain.

The project focuses on the handaxe, an iconic stone tool form that was used by our early humans ancestors in the Lower Palaeolithic. They are the hallmarks of a pervasive culture called the Acheulean. The creation of these was shaped by their intended use and available raw materials, as well as the skill, experience and inherited knowledge of their makers. Our project explores what variation in the shape of handaxes can tell us about traditions of manufacture and cultural differences between groups of early Neanderthals who lived in Britain and elsewhere in Europe between c. 600,000 and 250,000 years ago.

Key findings:

Using high-precision 3D surface scanning of artefacts and multivariate shape analysis, the project has so far been able to demonstrate:

• a dramatic jump in skilled manufacture of handaxes in Britain around half a million years ago (MIS 13/12), suggestive of parallel cognitive evolutionary processes
• the presence of prescriptive social norms within the Acheulean at the famous site of Boxgrove
• an increase in tool diversity and social complexity towards the end of the Acheulean in MIS 9
• the presence of two different and regionally distinct social groups operating within Britain during MIS 11

You can find out more about our results via our publications, all of which are openly available and free to read.

The project continues to highlight how similarities and differences in handaxe form can create a new framework for understanding the British Lower Palaeolithic period and, by extension, the wider European Acheulean.