camps, where unforeseen tasks were more common. Their main advantage in these situations was the lack of specialization and adaptability to multiple eventualities. A hand axe has a long blade with different curves and angles, some sharper and others more resistant, including points and notches. All of this is combined in one tool. Given the right circumstances, it is possible to make use of loose flakes. In the same book, Keeley states that a number of the hand axes studied were used as knives to cut meat (such as hand axes from Hoxne and Caddington). He identified that the point of another hand axe had been used as a clockwise drill. This hand axe came from Clacton-on-Sea (all of these sites are located in the east of England). Toth reached similar conclusions for pieces from the Spanish site in Ambrona (Soria). Analysis carried out by Domínguez-Rodrigo and co-workers on the primitive Acheulean site in Peninj (Tanzania) on a series of tools dated 1.5 mya shows clear microwear produced by plant phytoliths, suggesting that the hand axes were used to work wood. Among other uses, use-wear evidence for fire making has been identified on dozens of later Middle Palaeolithic hand axes from France, suggesting Neanderthals struck these tools with the mineral pyrite to produce sparks at least 50,000 years ago. Macroscopic traces Some hand axes were used with force that left clearly visible marks. Other visible marks can be left as the scars from retouching, on occasion it is possible to distinguish them from marks left by the initial manufacture. One of the most common cases is when a point breaks. This was seen at sites in Europe, Africa and Asia. One example comes from the El Basalito site in Salamanca, where excavation uncovered fragments of a hand axe with marks at the tip that appeared to be the result of the action of a wedge, which would have subjected the object to high levels of torsion that broke the tip. A break or extreme wear can affect a tool's point or any other part. Such wear was reworked by means of a secondary working as discussed above. In some cases this reconstruction is easily identifiable and was carried out using techniques such as the coup de tranchet (French, meaning "tranchet blow"), or simply with scale or scalariform retouches that alter an edge's symmetry and line. Forms The most characteristic and