Acheulean Expediency Potential: Handaxe Manufacturing Time Costs, Covariates and Skill

Despite decades of replicative experiments, the fundamental question “how long did it take to make an Acheulean handaxe” remains poorly understood. Archaeologists routinely base influential Pleistocene behavioral theory on lithic-related time budget considerations, so it is important to accurately understand their possible manufacturing costs. Here, we synthesize data from 227 handaxes manufactured by experienced, apprentice, and novice knappers. We record the duration of, and number of flake removals associated with, each handaxe, along with the duration of flake removal intervals and diverse covariate data. Experienced individuals were quicker, displayed briefer flaking intervals, and often removed fewer flakes, while inexperienced individuals were comparatively inefficient in multiple ways. Social environment, final handaxe form, and whether a target-shape was followed also impacted data, while handaxes produced under time pressure reveal the technologies’ expediency potential. Handaxe manufacturing costs are, therefore, highly context dependent, but were likely lower for Acheulean hominins than past work suggests.