I know nothing beyond the short press accounts about the 1.83-million-year-old "stone axes" from Malaysia.
On the one hand, there's nothing inherently unlikely about it. Why not early artifacts in Malaysia, considering the 1.8-million-year-old Mojokerto from Java.
You might object that it's too early to be a true handaxe, but the artifact pictured in the news article is not your typical Acheulean version, it looks more like one of the large bifacial artifacts that sometimes show up much earlier:
On the other hand, the deposition scenario sounds a little wonky:
The artefacts were found embedded in suevite rock, formed as a result of the impact of meteorite crashing down at Bukit Bunuh.
The suevite rock, reputedly the first found in Southeast Asia, was sent to the Geochronology Japan Laboratory three months ago and carbon dated using the fission track dating method.
Setting aside that fission track dating is not a form of radiocarbon dating, this still leaves problems. Fission track has a large standard error, and this doesn't make apparent how they know the artifacts are contemporaneous with this deposit. One of many reasons I'm glad I'm not a geoarchaeologist.
