Stone Age Hand Axe Shaped by Complex Brain
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2024
- The ability to make a Lower Paleolithic hand axe depends on complex cognitive control by the prefrontal cortex, including the "central executive" function of working memory, an Emory University study finds. Experimental archeologist Dietrich Stout trains novices to make Stone Age tools to explore the evolution of the human brain.
I teach flint knapping, and the skills involved in even producing even basic forms always surprises my students. I have noticed however there are 'natural' knappers who seem to excel at it, even if it's their first time. Like many skills I guess. I love all that flint lieing around in this video, very envious.
Australian Survival Instructors SO COOL i have a-lot of respect for you Flintknapers!!!!!!!!
Maybe, this instructor had students and taught in the very distant past.
I take issue with the statement at 1:54. Some hand axes were designed with form in mind over function; these were often made to display mastery of skill. Hand axes have been found that were made too large to be practical, which suggests that they were showpiece objects of interest as much as they were tools.
As the early version of this technology spread, it was no doubt an exclusively pragmatic pursuit, but (as we do) we quickly changed this. Symmetry grew to have _everything_ to do with tool making (possibly as a form of fitness for selection), and it is severely dismissive to assume that our ancestors had little regard for aesthetics. Flint-knapping is pretty far from discovery- such a procedure is more akin to refinement, or art.
Look around: Modern man fills his house with the useless in his pursuit of status. Would you expect that we come from a strictly utility-driven ancestry? H. erectus was quite adept, and had more "free" time than we do. Why not make one that's perfect, just to see if we can?
Hello, I know this comment was made 5 years ago, but I have a project and I think this would be an interesting fact for my project. Do you possibly have any sources to back up your info?
We have the luxury of our at home items not being used to determine our basic necessities. We have grocery stores, pharmacies etc. Many stone tools in the archaeological record are quite crude. Just enough in form to fit function. That is, up until implement of farming when people had more time on their hands. Hand axes to split marrow and scavenged meat do not need to be refined. You don't detail your car before driving to the grocery store is one example.
@@peallen92 And if I need to pound in a tent-peg, I'll grab the first rick within reach. None of these counterexamples serve to dismantle the paradigm, which is that man has displayed a clear progression of developing 'eye' for design over time. Abstraction didn't magically begin one day with Jackson Pollock accidentally spilling some paint; it began when we started to conceive of an ideal first in our heads, and then work towards its actualization-by refinement.
The first implements to act in service of the development of this new 'art,' naturally, would be our tools. If you doubt the trend is innate, or that it has origin beyond utility, a trip to the Gränsfors Bruk price page might help you to see what an axe still means to a man; it is the symbolic physical extension of the will, nothing less. An axe is _literally_ honed.
Also note that agriculture did NOT give people more time. The first subsistence strategies (foraging and pastoralism, only with light farming) were by far the most affluent with respect to time. Ironically, the tools of ag ended up forcing a shift to our attention, from _out_ of pure utility and further into the abstract: now we plan & prepare. In fact, there's little time for anything else.
As for the modern car example, the mere existence of a 'detailing' already demonstrates the absurd degree to which we tend to polish things. A dusty car is already an inordinately shiny and symmetrical thing. Ask yourself if you'd still be willing to drive it to the grocery store if one side of the car were missing a panel or two: where does its utility go then? Cars are now showpieces. They are perhaps our most disproportionate display of refined skill yet.
Except, back then to survive, they were more likely to be communal than have a "class system" and "capitalistic economy" like large scale modern humans. It's more likely that large objects were symbols of war or instructional aids than prehistoric GUCCI. Or even folklore and religion...like a "giant" story to inspire warriors.
@@rasmasyean There is no such thing as "communal." To some degree, as soon as there's a group, there becomes a pecking-order. In a communal hunting party for example, the hierarchical arrangement is based exclusively around status, which then _becomes_ the currency.
In such a case as the hunter, status can only be achieved through experience, unless it is exaggerated through boasting. Any object needed for skill refinement (for example, a bow or an arrowhead) provides an opportunity to do both, by using it to showcase one's skill _while_ flaunting well-made related equipment in the process. Hand-axes, which are similar implements for potential skill mastery, display the exact same paradigm of symbolic skill objectified and then refined; these tools become the utility-borne basis for abstraction, art. Further symbolic uses, like for instructional purposes, historical accounts, storytelling, and/or superstitious representations, are both incidental and secondary abstractions.
The old _harmony of the communal people_ idea is just an anthropological myth that has resulted of Relativistic thinking. In terms of its absurdity, the idea is right up there with romanticized foraging. In reality, leveling mechanisms are dramatically over-reported, because they tend to be the exception and not the rule. We like to boast, and compete. Tell me, have you _ever_ been in a group of humans when one of them was not naturally inclined to take the reins? On any camping trip, watch as tasks are first delegated seemingly arbitrarily, and then soon-as the campers begin to specialize-expertise and trade will naturally follow. At least for the human-like (probably Australopithecus forward), class and capital are both innate.
Like it or not, wherever there is value, there is necessarily scarcity. Scarcity means competition, and competition means inequality. Unfairness is a verifiable fact of the biological, and thus certainly human, condition.
Shout out to my Stone age ancestors. 😃✌🏽
Wikipedia:: "Acheulean hand axe."
AI Overview:
Splitting a silicon atom's nucleus into two or more smaller nuclei is called nuclear fission.
Flint and chert are both terms for a sedimentary rock made of silicon dioxide (SiO2).
Flint: A variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint is gray to black in color and nearly opaque, with a translucent brown appearance in thin splinters. Flint was used to make stone tools and start fires. Splitting a silicon atom's nucleus into two or more smaller nuclei is called nuclear fission.
Why not show us the axe being used?
exactly. the damned thing is sharp all the way around. ya cant hold it and use it. if a knife had a sharp edge all the way around the handle, we could not hold it and cut. this is why nobody shows using it. it can not be held and used with any force. if it were truly a hand axe, it would not have a sharp back side.
Fascinating! Thank you.
Super video ACHEULEAN
of our ancestors were awesome
Goru r baccha
That nice work
but, why is it sharp on all edges. it will cut the hand holding it if it is used. I still do not believe it is a hand axe. it would be rounded on the side to be held if it were. it is a tool, and it cuts, but why must it have an edge on the side a persons palm would contact...
Stone Age Gaff hook
Is there anything Joss Whedon can’t do?
No one really knows the mindset of the manufacturer of these tools. They did….we don’t
What makes the black stone
It's Flint a. You can use it to make fires
there are many kinds of stone that you can knap into a blade, and they all have different colors
How to make it soft
it's more brittle than soft actually
Wut
Why didn't you just ask some Native Americans to show you they're the experts I saw this done at a pow wow
Every group of humans ever had a stone age
There is no such thing as a hand ax. They are prepared cores to supply flakes. Its shape is to supply different flakes.
Then explain the small retouched edges on many many examples, or edge wear only gained by cutting. You have no idea what you talking about
There's like a million examples of axe heads of various shapes and sizes. From hammer to spikes to balls, you name it. What's wrong with the idea of an AK47 of axe heads passed down through the ages?
@piggyslayer1999 To make a set up to remove a flake. As a matter of fact you're a flake.
@@rasmasyean You have absolutely no deductive or analytical ability.
Show me where in chemistry do those stones have a crystal structure that would cause one to naturally flake a "core" into that shape? Let alone why they sharpen that many edges to waste their time. Look at this thing called the tomahawk and see the resemblence for function. That's the latest "hand-axe" before stuff you find in home depot replaced most of the functions.
it is so easy to Flint nap and I'm only 10
can ya make a vid bout it?
I'd like to see that
Maybe learn to spell,? FYI it is spelled knap, cheesedick