One of the key localities where it was first shown that man was of great antiquity. From 1836 onwards Boucher de Perthes found stone tools in the gravel pits here, and a succession of scholars, especially from England, recognized the significance of these discoveries around 1859. Subsequently, these pits in northern France became one of the richest sources of Palaeolithic tools, especially hand axes, in Europe. In 1939 Abbé Breuil proposed the name Abbevillian for both the type of crude hand axe found here and a whole early phase of hand-axe manufacture preceding the Acheulian in Europe. However, many modem prehistorians are not satisfied with the evidence for such a stage either from Abbeville or elsewhere.
The Macmillan dictionary of archaeology, Ruth D. Whitehouse, 1983Copied