The Coevolution of the Hominid Brain and Tools Steven Jon

The coevolution of manls neural structures and his tool traditions has been a constant point of investigation since the time of Charles Darwin. Here I will look at evidence demonstrating this positive correlation and readdress this point of study with some new evidence from archaeological sites in Africa that have yielded both hominid crania and tools. In addition to the above I will look at the possibility of hand preference as early as the australopithecines and early members of the species Homo habilis, who some feel is our earliest ancestor, as opposed to Australopithecus africanus. Throughout the history of the discipline of Paleoanthropology the relationship(s) between man's brain (crania) and his tools ("culture") has been a point of constant inquiry. At the turn of the century the brain's expansion was given much credit as a prime mover in hominid evolution. Charles Darwin felt that tool use was both the cause, and effect of, bipedalism. Darwin's Tool and Adaption Theory contended that ape like "protohominids" elaborated upon early tools and thus became more reliant upon them. This, in turn, led to an elaboration of the brain that brought about an increase in the complexity of tools. The hand was freed when bipedalism arose and the labor of the hand brought about other changes leading to further perfection of the hand and the further development of the brain (Frederich Engels: 1896). Another influential figure in Physical Anthropology, Raymond Dart, felt that australopithecines had the cognitive abilities to make and use tools made of bone, horn and teeth, "osteodontokeratic culture". Today there are many who feel that brain and tool elaboration are interrelated in a positive correlation with one another. I shall cite the work of these individuals (e.g. Sherwood Washburn, Philip Tobia, Nicholas Toth, David Pilbeam, et. al.) later in this discussion. What I contend is this: As the hominid brain became more developed, so did man's tool assortment (or "tool kit"). While I shall primarily concentrate on the early formative stages of human evolution (australopithecines to Homo erectus) this data has much farther reaching implications,~th biologically and