Introduction

The genesis of this volume was a short visit made by the editors to India in order to gain first-hand impressions of the Acheulian culture of this subcontinent. We were amazed by the wealth of the Indian Acheulian sites and finds. Most striking was the extensive similarity that we saw between the large cutting tools in the rich Indian collections and the Levantine bifaces so well known to us. Our impressions were very strong and clearly illustrated the advantage of direct observation over what we had learned from the literature alone. It then dawned on us that the same is probably true for the Levantine Acheulian assemblages as well: real understanding can come only through direct examination of the stone tools. We then began to toy with the idea of an invitation to Israel, to enable our colleagues working in India to gain a different perspective on the Levantine Acheulian. This idea was discussed with our colleagues, who expressed enthusiasm. We therefore initiated the plan for a workshop that would assemble prehistorians of great experience in the study of the Acheulian and its large cutting tools, giving them the opportunity to visit some of the well-known Levantine Acheulian sites of Israel, examine the collections and exchange ideas.