ASEBL Journal – Volume 11 Issue 2, Spring 2015
in how artification evolved among hominids (for more on sexual selection as interwoven with the evolution of cultural practice, see Voland 2003). Once artification began, artefacts like necklaces, bracelets, headdresses, clothing from animal
furs, skins and rare bird plumages, were all used to display social rank (e.g. Coolidge and Wynn (2009), Finlayson et al. (2012)). The social ability to acquire such
resources was important, but not necessarily the skill in making them. Although,
taste in what to acquire or wear would have been visible for everyone to judge.
However, Dutton’s and Dissanayake’s arguments do not exclude each other completely. Dutton’s arguments are mainly concerned with beauty generally, rather
than artification per se (for Dissanayake’s arguments against sexual selection as
the main reason for the origins of art, see Dissanayake 2014c). Sexual selection
provides the best answer for the origin of the first proto-artification after the development of proto-aesthetic ethological rhythms and modes Dissanayake documents
in mother-baby interaction. The best explanation for the symmetrical Acheulean
hand axe tradition that began around 1.4 million years ago is Dutton’s, Kohn’s and
Mithen’s analysis from sexual selection. The hand axe has been called the early
hominid Swiss army knife. It was a multi-purpose tool first developed around 2.5
million years ago by Australopithecines made from nodules of basalt, limestone or
chert modelled into a dagger shape by strikes with a hammerstone, removing
flakes. They were used for butchering carcasses, but also likely for activities such
as cracking nuts or throwing at enemies or prey. These axes were not intentionally
designed into this shape, as they resulted from the original shape of the module
selected for craft (for a lengthy discussion on all aspects discussed here about
Acheulean hand axes, see Mithen 2003). These continued in roughly the same production for around a million years until hominids began to create hand axes that
are marked by a distinct attempt towards symmetry, expert craftship, special materials and uniqueness of product. The former are often called Oldowan tools, but
also Oldowan hand axes. The latter are often called either hand axes or symmetrical hand axes. I will call them Acheulean hand axes, following Dutton (2014).
The difference with Acheulean hand axes are that they have been crafted with an
intent purpose to create a symmetrical tear-drop shape in three dimensions, markedly different from those of Oldowan tools, even though such symmetry and shaping were unnecessary for butchering carcasses and activities like cutting bark from
trees and extracting nut innards. The advent of these qualities can be explained as
indicating phenomena in tools produced for use in social settings where others
would have seen them (Kohn and Mithen 1999). “The ability to make a fine, symmetrical handaxe would have been a reliable indicator of those mental capacities
required for their production; such capacities may have been of value in other domains of activity. Quite simply, classic handaxes were difficult to make, requiring
a high degree of intelligence...Handaxes would have been a ‘test of character’, indicating behavioural disposition to potential mates” (Mithen 2003). Sexual selection is the best, in many ways only, explanation for the Acheulean hand axe tradition, which continued for roughly another million years until the rise of Homo sapiens and more complicated forms of artification, because of the abundance of aesthetic qualities and practices in these artefacts, qualities and practices that cannot
be explained through natural selection or purposes of religious or social bonding
11