Abstract: Many proto- handaxes have been found in China. Although the classification and denomination differs among scholars. they are important for research on the systems of the Palaeolithic in China.
These proto-handaxes are made of pebbles and thick flakes. They are large in size and usually irregular in shape and can be divided into various types: bifaces, unifaces and artifacts with a triangular cross-section· A few dozen localities have been discovered and they are distributed in the following areas: 1. Northern China, including parts of Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan; 2. Central China, including southern Shaanxi, Hunan and Anhui, all in the Changjiang River valley; 3. Southern China, only in part of Guangxi. The localities in Central China are more dense in distribution and more plentiful in number.
These proto-handaxes were chiefly found in stratigraphical layers of the middle Pleistocene and mostly belong to the early Palaeolithic, some of them may be later, but after the middle Palaeolithic Age they were almost completely disappered. In deposits of the Holocene there are artifacts which look something like proto-handaxes, but they are Neolithic implements and have no direct relation to the proto-handaxes.
The proto-handaxes discovered in China are fewer than the chopper-chopping tools found there. They are associated with bolas and other artifacts and together with them constitute assemblages of large stone implements. Their shapes and chipping methods and the artifacts assocaited with them are all different from those of the typical handaxe of the Acheulian tradition. We call them proto-handaxes to indicate that they are of another tradition in the world. The handaxes discovered in Korea and Southeastern Asia belong to the proto-handaxe too, but the relationship between them and those in China still needs to be explored.
There were at least two cultural systems in the early Palaeolithic of China. One is the pebble industry represented by proto-handaxes and the other is the flake industry represented by the Zhoukoudian culture. By the late Palaeolithic Age, proto-handaxes were replaced by the flake industry in North China. In Central and Southern China, however, the pebble industry had been continued until early Neolithic after proto-handaxes disappeared. It is the main course of development of the late Palaeolithic in China.

Key words: proto-handaxe; chopper-chopping tool