Acheulean

Acheulean ( /əˈʃuːliən/; also Acheulian) (from French acheuléen, a term based on the name Saint-Acheul, a suburb of Amiens, the capital of the Somme department in Picardy, where hand-axes of this period were found in 1859), is the name given to an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture associated with early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of West Asia, South Asia, and Europe. Acheulean tools are typically found with Homo erectus remains. It is thought that they first developed out of the more primitive Oldowan technology as long ago as 1.76 million years ago, by Homo habilis.

It was the dominant technology for the vast majority of human history starting more than one million years ago. Their distinctive oval and pear-shaped handaxes have been found over a wide area and some examples attained a very high level of sophistication. Although it developed in Africa, the industry is named after the type site of Saint-Acheul, now a suburb of Amiens in northern France (not to be confused with the rural commune of Saint Acheul), where some of the first examples were identified in the 19th century.