EEN HALVE VUISTBIJL VAN HEMELUM IN GAASTERLAND (FR.)
Samenvatting
A basal fragment o f a handaxe was found near Hemelum in the province of Friesland. The rounded base has a cutting edge; however, the implement as a whole makes an unfinished impression. lt may have broken along a hidden frost crack during manufacture. The findspot is located on the lower slope of one of a series of ice-pushed moraine hills that surround the glacial basin of Gaasterland. The landscape was sculpted by the Saalian ice-sheet, during a stationary phase in its retreat to the north. The heavily weathered handaxe cannot be dated more precisely than to the Eemian or the first half of the Weichselian. lt is quite possible that the Neanderthals who left behind this tool lived along the shores of lakes that must have been present in the basin during the Eemian and parts of the Weichselian.
