Trust The Prime Reason For Crafting Tools During Old Stone Age

Hand axes made around 1.7 million years ago by our ancestors suggest a need to prove their trustworthiness as mates rather than projecting sexual desire, according to  Dr Penny Spikins from the archaeology department of University of York.

Hand axes, or bifaces, appeared around 1.7 million years ago in Africa and spread throughout the world in Europe and western Asia, functioning primarily as butchery implements. Hand axes form remained remarkably similar for more than a million years.

Dr Spikins said, "We sometimes imagine that early humans were self-centered, and if emotional at all that they would have been driven by their immediate desires. However, research suggests that we have reason to have more faith in human nature, and that trust played a key role in early human societies. Displaying trust not lust was behind the attention to detail and finely made form of hand axes."

The article 'World Archaeology', which explains the trustworthy hand axe theory, contradicts the previous findings that state finely crafted hand axes were about  ompetition between males and sexual selection.

Dr Spikins said, "Since their first recovery, the appealing form of hand axes and the difficulty of their manufacture have inspired much interest into the possible 'meaning' of these artifacts. Much of the debate has centered on claims that the attention to symmetrical form and the demonstration of skill would have played a key role in sexual selection, as they would have helped attract a mate eager to take advantage of a clear signal of advantageous genes.

"However, I propose that attention to form is much more about decisions about who to trust; that it can be seen as a gesture of goodwill or trustworthiness to others. The attention to detail is about showing an ability to care about the final form, and by extension, people too.

"In addition, overcoming the significant frustrations of imposing form on stone displays considerable emotional self-control and patience, traits needed for strong and enduring relationships."

Dr Spikins said, "Trust is essential to all our relationships today, and we see the very beginnings of the building blocks of trust in other apes. The implication that it was an instinct towards trust which shaped the face of stone tool manufacture is particularly significant to our understanding of Lower Paleolithic societies. It sets a challenge for research into how our emotions, rather than our complex thinking skills, made us human.

"As small vulnerable primates in risky environments where they faced dangerous predators our ancestors needed to be able to depend on each other to survive -- displaying our emotional capacities was part of forming trusting relationships with the kind of 'give and take' that they needed."

In order to support her theory of trustworthiness, the researcher states the example of other higher primates such as chimpanzees, as well as modern human hunter-gatherers.

"Long-term altruistic alliances in both chimpanzees and humans are forged by many small unconscious gestures of goodwill, or acts of altruism, such as soothing those in distress or sharing food," said Dr Spikins.

"As signals of trustworthiness, these contribute to one's reputation, and in hunter-gatherers reputation can be the key to survival, with the most trustworthy hunters being looked after most willingly by the others when they are ill or elderly.

The form of a hand axes is worth considerable effort, as it may demonstrate trustworthiness not only in its production, but also each time it is seen or re-used, when it might remind others of the emotional reliability of its maker."