Length: 190.000 mm
Width: 87.000 mm
Thickness: 42.000 mm

On loan from the Society of Antiquaries of London .

Enlightenment: Archaeology

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Enlightenment: The Birth of Archaeology

Hoxne handaxe

In 1797, John Frere (1740-1807), an MP and High Sheriff of Suffolk, presented this handaxe and four other flint implements found in Hoxne to the Sociey of Antiquaries. Quarrying had exposed them 'in great numbers' twelve feet down with the jawbone of an enormous unknown animal. Frere described the strata covering them and concluded that they were 'evidently weapons of war, fabricated and used by a people who had not the use of metals' and who must date from 'a very remote period indeed; even beyond that of the present world'.

This was the earliest recognition that handaxes were the work of early humans, rather than being thunderbolts or meteorites. Moreover, Frere believed that the handaxes were older than written history. This reflected the influence of new geological ideas about the age and formation of the earth which had opened up the possibility of a human prehistory, although it was another sixty years before the antiquity of humans became more widely appreciated.