Axes are among the most ancient and iconically human tools, for nearly 50,000 years they have served as the primary tool for harvesting and converting our most abundant resource - trees. If you include hand axes you can more than triple that time.
Since the advent of the saw, our reliance on the axe has diminished, but with a little practice and common sense, axes, adzes and froes remain an astonishingly efficient and accurate way to cut, split and shape wood.