: Biface is an ancient tool. Its name comes from the French word ‘biface’ which means ‘double-sided’. The tool resembled a sharp flat knife. It was a piece of stone, treated on both sides. The shape and the size, as well as the material of the biface could differ. But the main feature remained unchanged: its edges were treated using a special technique.

First, the edges were knapped — the future tool was hit against a denser surface. And then the retouching was used: thin flakes were removed from the stone surface with the help of bone, wooden or stone tools.

Scientists have not established exactly how the stone tools were used in the Paleolithic era, 3 million-12 thousand years BC. Archaeologists suggest that they served as hand axes: probably, they were used to dig out plant roots and cut leaves and stems.

Irkutsk archaeologist Herman Medvedev argued that it is easier to study how an object was created than for what purpose it was made:

The biface from the Regional Museum of the Local History collection was discovered at the ‘Resettlement Center’. It is an early man site, discovered by archaeologist Mikhail Gerasimov in 1922. It was located in the Sverdlovsk region of the city of Irkutsk. During the 1920s bones of extinct animals, including a mammoth and a woolly rhinoceros, as well as stone artifacts of the Paleolithic era, which were created 25-35 thousand years ago, were discovered at the Resettlement Center. However, the exact coordinates of the excavation area were not saved, and the archaeologists lost the location of the Resettlement Center.

In 2007, Irkutsk builders were digging a pit and found unusual cavities in the ground. They called for archaeologist Vladimir Bazaliysky, who then found stone artifacts and suggested that this was part of the early human site that Mikhail Gerasimov had discovered and explored.