Handaxes: what for? Eileen O'Brien was a research student at the time she came up with this brilliant idea. The idea was subsequently taken up by W H Calvin, but not seriously pursued, his speciality being neuroscience. No one else seems to have seriously pursued it and there has been some active opposition (see link). But no one has thought of a better use for the handaxe. Nor has anyone else suggested any other weapon that the thrower could have had which would have been as effective. If we assume as I do that pre-human bipeds fought their enemies by throwing stones and we also know (as we do) that they learned the ability to shape stones, it would be surprising if they had not improved on nature by making specialised stone missiles of some sort. No other surviving artifact answers this description as well as the handaxe. Of course they were so commonly available that they may sometimes have served the purpose of a cutting tool as well. A version of Eileen O'Brien's paper is at this link .