A chopping or cutting tool, beveled on one side and characteristic of the Neolithic in Southeast Asia. It appeared as early as 6000 BC in some places and continued in use into the 1st millennium AD in places with little metal. There were generally flaked to shape from a large core, then ground and polished. Traded forms were roughed-out blanks that would be polished later. The form was a simple quadrangle. By the Late Neolithic a decrease in the proportion of stone axes to adzes suggests the increasing dominance of permanent agriculture.