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["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

> Desert indians had axes with no handles.  They held it in the palm of
> their hands to chop.  

One major difficulty in anthropology is identifying human manufactured
tools.  What is the difference between a rock split in a tumble down a
stream and one split by human intervention?  Dr Leaky once called some
stream broken rocks signs of human habitation while his wife just shook her
head.

What this leaves us are rocks that could have been manipulated by humans
that are grouped under the wide umbrella of "hand ax."  It is a huge subject
of conversation but only in academic circles.

Many early people used a hand ax for all sorts of thing, chopping trees is
but one.  Other uses would have to do with cracking bones and scraping
skins.  The latter lead to another large group of stone artifact, scrapers.

Desert Indians did not need a handled ax that much, few trees grew in the
desert and there were enough downed trees for firewood.  The favored trade
goods were metal knives and cooking pots.

Don Bowen  KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html