Baldwin effects in early stone tools.

A sizeable dataset comprising millions of lithic artifacts sampling over two million years of early paleolithic tool technology from Africa and Eurasia is now available. The widespread presupposition of an exclusively cultural, that is, socially learned, nature of early stone tools from at least Acheulean times onwards has been challenged by researchers who hypothesize that these tools, a crucial element of early hominin survival strategies, may partly have been under genetic control, next to the effects of various other determinants. The discussion this hypothesis has sparked off in the present journal is here explored somewhat further, focusing on the Baldwin effect.

The Acheulean handaxe: More like a bird's song than a beatles' tune?

The goal of this paper is to provoke debate about the nature of an iconic artifact-the Acheulean handaxe. Specifically, we want to initiate a conversation about whether or not they are cultural objects. The vast majority of archeologists assume that the behaviors involved in the production of handaxes were acquired by social learning and that handaxes are therefore cultural. We will argue that this assumption is not warranted on the basis of the available evidence and that an alternative hypothesis should be given serious consideration. This alternative hypothesis is that the form of Acheulean handaxes was at least partly under genetic control.

Homo habilis's humanness: Phillip Tobias as a philosopher.

A detailed, interdisciplinary reading of Phillip Tobias's publications on Homo habilis shows how a philosophical notion of "humanness" has structured his interpretation of the fossils attributed to this species. The role of this notion in his research and its backgrounds in philosophy, disciplinary history, and a widespread mid-20th-century climate of opinion are analyzed and discussed.