Archaeologists in Israel unearthed prehistoric hand axes that Homo erectus crafted from stones including fossils and crystals, perhaps a sign that they wanted to connect with the cosmos April 20, 2026 10:00 a.m. Researchers found this hand ax, which appears to have been shaped around a geological feature imprint. R. Barkai et al., Tel Aviv, 2026 under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Many modern humans love collecting unique rocks, from shiny gold nuggets to fossil-bearing stones and geodes filled with colorful crystals. Now, new research suggests that our Homo erectus ancestors may have shared this fascination. Archaeologists in Israel unearthed ten prehistoric hand axes made from rocks that contain fossils, crystals or some other geological anomaly. The researchers think H. erectus selected these rocks deliberately and created the artifacts between 500,000 and 200,000 years ago, they report in a paper published March 17 in the journal Tel Aviv . H.…