Were Paleolithic Hand Axes Made For Seduction?

Were Palaeolithic hand axes made to attract partners and did genes play a role in their production? Two interesting hypotheses up for discussion.

Artwork By Ettore Mazza:
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Huge thanks as always to my patreons whose help is essential to the production of these vids!
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Primary Sources:
Kohn, Marek, and Steven Mithen. “Handaxes: Products of Sexual Selection?” Antiquity, vol. 73, no. 281, 1999, pp. 518–526., doi:10.1017/s0003598x00065078.


Corbey, Raymond, et al. “The Acheulean Handaxe: More like a Bird's Song than a Beatles' Tune?” Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, vol. 25, no. 1, 2016, pp. 6–19., doi:10.1002/evan.21467.

Secondary Sources:

Beyene, Y., et al. “The Characteristics and Chronology of the Earliest Acheulean at Konso, Ethiopia.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 110, no. 5, 2013, pp. 1584–1591., doi:10.1073/pnas.1221285110.

Deino, Alan L., and Sally McBrearty. “40Ar/39Ar Dating of the Kapthurin Formation, Baringo, Kenya.” Journal of Human Evolution, vol. 42, no. 1-2, 2002, pp. 185–210., doi:10.1006/jhev.2001.0517.

Yravedra, José, et al. “Mammal Butchery by Homo Erectus at the Lower Pleistocene Acheulean Site of Juma’s Korongo 2 (JK2), Bed III, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.” Quaternary Science Reviews, vol. 249, 2020, p. 106612., doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106612.

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Disclaimer: Use my videos as a rough guide to a topic. I am not an expert, I may get things wrong. This is why I always post my sources so you can critique my work and verify things for yourselves. Of course I aim to be as accurate as possible which is why you will only find reputable sources in my videos. Secondly, information is always subject to changes as new information is uncovered by archaeologists.


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