Also, the most nerve-wracking. I mean, you only get one shot at making something like this. Mess it up, and there’s no way to fix it.
This Acheulean handaxe was deliberately knapped so as to display a fossil shell of the Cretaceous bivalve Spondylus spinosus at its centre. pic.twitter.com/yYxflflISu
— Prof Jamie Woodward (@Jamie_Woodward_) September 20, 2017
You also have to wonder if the guy who made it ever actually used it. Probably; they didn’t have much margin, back then. But it’s one of those artifacts that you know had extra care lavished on it.