Abbevillian

Abbevillian is the term given by archaeologists to the earliest stone tool industries of Europe and Africa.

The type site is a river terrace of the River Somme near the French town of Abbeville where handaxes were first discovered in the nineteenth century.

Abbevillian tools are crudely chipped bifacial handaxes made during the Mindel Glaciation of the Pleistocene Ice Age, which covered central Europe between 500,000 and 400,000 years ago.

It was superseded by the Acheulean industry.