Handaxes: products of sexual selection?
@article{Kohn1999HandaxesPO,
title={Handaxes: products of sexual selection?},
author={Marek Kohn and Steven Mithen},
journal={Antiquity},
year={1999},
volume={73},
pages={518 - 526}
}Why were handaxes made and why was their shape symmetrical and regular? These and many other questions are considered here, in a paper tackling hominid social behaviour and sexual selection.
245 Citations
Sex, symmetry and silliness in the bifacial world
- ArtAntiquity
- 2009
After 10 years of pursuing sexy handaxes it is probably time to put these coquettish creatures to bed. Readers wishing to continue the debate are courteously directed to our Project Gallery.
The Case Against Sexual Selection as an Explanation of Handaxe Morphology
- Biology
- 2009
The necessary assumptions and conditions underlying the argument for sexual selection as an explanation for handaxe morphology are outlined, and several more parsimonious alternative explanations that are directly based on hard data are presented.
Why are some handaxes symmetrical? Testing the influence of handaxe morphology on butchery effectiveness
- Environmental Science
- 2007
Sexual selection, conspicuous consumption and economic growth
- Economics
- 2015
We propose that the evolution by sexual selection of the male propensity to engage in conspicuous consumption contributed to the emergence of modern rates of economic growth. We develop a model in…
Why handaxes just aren't that sexy: a response to Kohn & Mithen (1999)
- BusinessAntiquity
- 2008
The Acheulean handaxe is one of the most iconic, analysed and fiercely debated artefacts from the prehistoric period. Persisting for over one million years and recovered from sites across the Old…
Sexual selection of conspicuous consumption
- Biology, PsychologyJournal of Evolutionary Economics
- 2021
It is argued that cultural evolution theory provides an alternative explanation of conspicuous consumption in modern environments and is understood as a pattern of behavior marked by specific social learning mechanisms and provides a classification of cognitive factors involved in consumption choices.
Symmetry and humans: reply to Mithen's ‘Sexy Handaxe Theory’
- PsychologyAntiquity
- 2009
In reply to Machin's criticism of Kohn and Mithen's (1999) 'Sexy Handaxe Theory' in a recent Antiquity debate (Machin 2008: 761-6), Mithen (2008: 766-9) states that sexual selection is still relevant…
Love kills: Simulations in Penna Ageing Model
- Economics
- 2010
The standard Penna ageing model with sexual reproduction is enlarged by adding additional bit-strings for love: Marriage happens only if the male love strings are sufficiently different from the…
Symmetry is its own reward: on the character and significance of Acheulean handaxe symmetry in the Middle Pleistocene
- PsychologyAntiquity
- 2018
Abstract Bilateral symmetry in handaxes has significant implications for hominin cognitive and socio-behavioural evolution. Here the authors show that high levels of symmetry occur in the British…
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 65 REFERENCES
Finite social space, evolutionary pathways, and reconstructing hominid behavior.
- PsychologyScience
- 1989
By defining the limited number of distributional strategies available to members of each sex of any species and investigating the conditions under which they may occur and change, the social behavior of different hominid taxa may be reconstructed.
Mate selection-a selection for a handicap.
- Psychology, BiologyJournal of theoretical biology
- 1975
Patterns of fluctuating asymmetry in avian feather ornaments: implications for models of sexual selection
- PsychologyProceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences
- 1991
The predictions that sexual ornaments should show a larger degree of fluctuating asymmetry than other morphological traits or than homologous traits in non ornamented species and the negative relation between ornament size and degree of asymmetry suggest that fluctuate asymmetry in ornament reliably reflects male phenotypic quality.
Human Fluctuating Asymmetry and Sexual Behavior
- Psychology
- 1994
This report presents evidence that sexual selection may favor developmental stability (i e, the absence of fluctuating asymmetry) in humans Subtle, heritable asymmetries in seven nonfacial human body…
Patterns of fluctuating asymmetry in weapons: evidence for reliable signalling of quality in beetle horns and bird spurs
- PsychologyProceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences
- 1992
A comparative study of the patterns of fluctuating asymmetry in horns of beetles and spurs of birds showed that the degree of asymmetry was considerably larger than in elytra and wing length, which are apparently not subjected to sexual selection.
Fluctuating asymmetry in male sexual ornaments may reliably reveal male quality
- Environmental ScienceAnimal Behaviour
- 1990
Fluctuating asymmetry, sexual selection and canine teeth in primates
- Biology, PsychologyProceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences
- 1993
It was found that asymmetry was correlated with measures of sexual selection including canine dimorphism, canine size, mass dimorphistan, and intra-male competition, however, there was no significant correlation with diet type and body mass, which are only weakly associated with sexual selection.
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
- Art
- 1993
Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for…
Grandmothering and the evolution of homo erectus.
- Environmental ScienceJournal of human evolution
- 1999
An alternative scenario is developed, that climate-driven adjustments in female foraging and food sharing practices, possibly involving tubers, favored significant changes in ancestral life history, morphology, and ecology leading to the appearance, spread and persistence of H. erectus.