Abstract: The “handaxe issue” has been discussed and debated for a long time in Paleolithic research in China. As claimed by some researchers, handaxes have been discovered at some Middle Pleistocene localities in southern and central China and regarded as evidence to invalidate the hypothesis of the so-called “Movius Line” and to suggest that there is no obvious technological and typological difference between the East and the West in the remote past. However, most of the Chinese handaxes have been collected only from some isolated sites as surface? finds,? mainly? in? the? Bose? Basin? in? the? Guangxi?Autonomous? Region? and? the? Han-Luo- Dan Region in southeastern Shaanxi Province and northwestern Hubei Province. Stratigraphic information and chronometric results are known for exceptional cases. The number of handaxes is also limited for any given site, and most of them are products of casual and simple retouch with hardly any standardized size and overall shape. Therefore, they are different from Acheulian handaxes present in Africa and the western Eurasia in the Lower Paleolithic.
This paper reviews the history of research on the handaxe issue in China, presents different ideas and propositions, and analyzes the nature of the arguments and the weakness of data sets. It points out that most of the Chinese handaxes should be functionally the same with another type of heavy duty tool, the pick, which are large digging tools (LDT) of Pleistocene human groups living in tropical and subtropical environments exploiting plant food resources, and part of the toot-kit of pebble tool tradition in central and southern China. They might have their local origins with ?possible ?western ?influence.?The? significance ?of? this? kind? of? stone? tool ?in? Pleistocene ?China? and East Asia plus future research directions are also discussed.

Key words: Handaxe; Typology; Pebble-tool tradition; Acheulian technology; Eastern origins with? western ?influence