What is going on? I am an archaeologist, so why am I getting super excited about creating Palaeolithic tools from materials unavailable to people in the Palaeolithic past? Furthermore, this seems more to be an exploration of my own particular aesthetics, albeit with a link to crafts people in the Palaeolithic past. Perhaps they are my inspiration here? Essentially, this process is telling us nothing about Palaeolithic people, so is it a vanity project?

This particular handaxe is not perfect, but I love it. I actually love its idiosyncrasies’, the lumpy central line I couldn’t remove. It fits together perfectly for what it is, in spite of not being something else? By something else I am thinking of my last blue handaxe, classically aesthetic, with smooth, long and clean removals.

I immediately thought, well I collected the glass for this most recent handaxe, and so that must be it. However, I bought the glass disc for the earlier handaxe, from a flea market so although not the same, I was still responsible for acquiring the materials. It may be to do with the extended process, involving mould makers and furnace drivers? It may also be that I am using a waste material, originally abandoned in the 1930s to 1950s, and then again in the recent past, by the bottle diggers who have left the fragmented glass bottles on the surface for me to collect.

I don’t know. As an archaeologist I feel this object should be adding some kind of intellectual value to our understanding of the Palaeolithic past, but it doesn’t. So, is it a vanity project? If so then all art could be classed as vanity projects. Perhaps this is a piece of art rather than a piece of archaeology? I also love the recycling of materials that goes into this, to highlight a different approach to valuing materials.

So perhaps what I am saying here is; this is a piece of art; inspired by Palaeolithic crafts people; and using the making process to highlight a different attitude and set of values to modern ‘waste’ materials. Perhaps that is what I am doing, and that is what this handaxe is doing.