Confirmed
by Professor David Thomas:
Giant hand
axes found in African desert! 
ScienceDaily
has an article of giant stone tools found in the dry basin
of Lake Makgadikgadi in the Kalahari Desert of Africa. Professor
David Thomas of the University of Oxford has confirmed that
four of the hand-axes they found were more than 30 centimetres
long!
An article in ScienceDaily is telling that Oxford University
researchers have found thousands of stone tools in a lake
bed, now-dry basin of Lake Makgadikgadi in the Kalahari Desert
in the southern Africa. Most of them of normal size but they
also found four giant stone hand axes, measuring over 30 cm
long - believed to be the world's largest stone tools ever
found! Although the first find was made in the 1990s, the
discovery of four giant axes, of uncertain age, has not been
scientifically reported until now.
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David Thomas
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Professor
David Thomas, Head of the School of Geography and the Environment
at the University of Oxford, and co-researcher Dr Sallie Burrough
were trying to document how humans in Africa adapted to several
substantial climate change events during the period that coincided
with the last Ice Age in Europe.
Radio interview
So far according to ScienceDaily but I also found a radio
interview with Professor Davis Thomas on BBC's web pages,
and when he was asked about the stone tools Professor Thomas
has the following to say:
- Some, very, very large stone tools or
hand axes, so big that they're perhaps the biggest hand axes
that anyone has found anywhere. Over 30 centimetres long,
so they are vast, and they are very, very heavy as well!
When he was asked what he believed that
the stones axes were used for he answered:
- Well, that is the million dollars question.
For the archaeologists this is the big unknown. Various suggestions
have included that although they look like tools, they really
aren't tools, they're part of a resource that smaller tools
would be taken from, to other people suggesting that they
had some ceremonial or ornamental role, another alternative
is that they are practise pieces. Training pieces for people
to demonstrate how you make stone tools.
He could confirm
I thought that the story of the giant hand axes was very interesting
and send an e-mail to Professor Davis Thomas. He was kind
enough to reply and his answer was positive: He could confirm
that the four stone axes were indeed over 30 centimetres long!
I did not ask if he had given some thoughts
that "the big unknown" could be that the stone axes
had been used by a race of prehistoric giants - because to
answer positive to such a question would most probably be
to commit career-suicide!
Well, another person that supposedly has found giant stone
axes is Rex Gilroy. I will try to get in touch with him, because
he believes that all the giant stone tools that he and his
wife has found in Australia were made by a former civilisation
- a mysterious white-skinned race of giants that created an
advanced stone-age megalithic culture!
From:
Terje Dahl [mailto:terje@sydhav.no]
Sent: Thursday, 26 August 2010 1:24 PM
To: 'david.thomas@ouce.ox.ac.uk'
Regarding: Hand axes in Africa
Dear Sir,
I read the story "Giant Stone-Age Axes Found
In African Lake Basin" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090911134624.htm
and I wonder if you please can confirm that it was
four huge hand axes (in the picture) that was found.
"Four giant stone hand axes, measuring over 30
cm long and of uncertain age, were recovered from
the lake basin."
Regards
Terje Dahl
Editor
The internet magazine "Sydhav" (Norwegian
for "South Seas")
www.sydhav.no
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From:
David Thomas [mailto:david.thomas@ouce.ox.ac.uk]
Sent: Thursday, 26 August 2010 6:39 PM
To: Terje Dahl
Regarding: RE: Hand axes in Africa
Hi it was indeed 4 over 30cm
long. Pl go to my web page at geography, uni oxford,
for details and links to radio interviews.
Best
Dave
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The
article in ScienceDaily:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090911134624.htm
Professor Davis Thomas page at Oxford University:
http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/staff/dthomas.html
BBC article and streaming radio-interview - click here
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