British/European 'Handaxe Sculpture' Symbolizing Traditon / i)westofts

West Tofts, Norfolk, England, 5.5 in. base to tip. The date of the site is insecure, but generally accepted to be Final Acheulian or Middle Paleolithic, c. 100,000 BP.

Oakley describes this piece as pointed Acheulian handaxe of flint showing one valve of embedded shell of Upper Cretaceous bivalve mollusc, Spondylus spinosus, University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge. Oakley, K. (1981). Emergence of higher thought 3.0-0.2 Ma B.P. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 292:205-211: fig. 2. Oakley infers that these artefacts/naturefacts reflect the emergence of "art as human behaviour" and "higher thought" [Oakley, K. P. (1981). Emergence of higher thought 3.0-0.2 Ma B.P. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London B 292:205-211; (1973). Fossils collected by the earlier palaeolithic men. In Mélanges de préhistoire, d’archéocivilization et d’ethnologie offerts à André Varagnac, pp. 581-584. Paris: Serpen]. For further detail on the West Tofts handaxe, see John Feliks (1998) who analyzes its remarkable degree of centering and notes the fact that the fossil bivalve is itself a creature of bilateral symmetry and is "an iconic image framed by a human being." [Feliks, J. (1998). The impact of fossils on the development of visual representation. Rock Art Research 15, 2:109-124].

Comment: The shell inclusion in the 'navel' area may be compared to the Swanscombe, Wolvercote and Cys-la-Commune bifaces in this gallery. This symbolism is typical of the British 'Handaxe Sculpture' Symbolizing Tradition. Whether this biface also may have a profile or face flaked into it cannot be determined from this two-dimensional image.

Photograph © Colin Renfrew, in Pfeiffer, J. (1982). The Creative Explosion. New York: Harper and Row.

Submitted Comments.
5/2003. Jan Evert Musch suggests that there is an additional image on this piece, a female figure whose head or face is in the shell, with two breasts below, possible chip for the navel, and for the vulva indicated by the lighter colored chip at the bottom center or the chip like a hole on the bottom, center.