The world's oldest battle axe has apparently been unearthed in Australia, making this the first known blade to utilize a handle to add more power and force upon wielding it.

Researchers from several universities worldwide have identified this broken basalt shard which originated from a 49,000 to 44,000 year old axe. According to lead author of the study, Peter Hiscock from the University of Sydney, this axe is a possible technological innovation that was first used by the earliest Aboriginal settlers in Australia.

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He explains that there are no known axes from Southeast Asia during the Ice age, which suggests that humans who first arrived in Australia began experimenting with new technologies, inventing ways to adapt to the new, Australian landscape and environment.

This type of axe is not only efficient for cutting wood and meat, but also as a weapon of war. Cutting stones were used as early as 700,000 years back, however, shaping a blade out of sharp stone, making an axe head and attaching a handle to it, represents a significant leap in the evolution of humans, signifying human intelligence. 

When it comes to the origin and the evolution of mankind's first axe, archaeologists have been in the quest to determine the oldest one, where they discovered that axes uncovered in Australia were the oldest among other places. 

In this new study, this polished basalt was discovered in the early 1990s by Australian National University's Sue O'Connor, during excavation work of an ancient rock shelter in Western Australia's northern region of Kimberley in Carpenter's Gap. It is also the first known site in the continent that has been inhabited by early humans.

This fragment was not examined and analyzed until 2014, where O'Connor says that these types of axes cannot be seen anywhere else especially dated this old. In Japan, similar axes are dated 35,000 years old, however, in most countries, they are dated around 10,000 years during the time when agriculture arrived and shaped modern civilizations.

Researchers believe that in order to shape this basalt shard into a sharp head along with a base that can support a handle, would require several days of hard work. This in turn makes the first axe something of high value, a precious tool and asset as well. Some fragments also appear to be flaked off after resharpening.

Even if the first axe technology could originate from Australia, knowledge of it did not spread among early Aboriginals beyond the north. Hiscock adds that colonizing groups may have abandoned the axe as humans spread out to deserts, in a more subtropical environment from tropical woodlands in the north.

This new study is published in the journal Australian Archaeology. 

Tagsfirst axe in the world, Australia, world's oldest axe, Human evolution