scholarly journals Dog Stick Chewing: An Overlooked Instance of Tool Use?

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Brooks ◽  
Shinya Yamamoto
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Research Interest ◽  
Cognitive Evolution ◽  
Central Topic ◽  
Chewing Sticks

Tool use is a central topic in research on cognitive evolution and behavioral ecology in non-human animals. Originally thought to be a uniquely human phenomenon, many other species have been observed making and using tools for a variety of purposes, starting with Goodall’s (1964) groundbreaking work with chimpanzees in Gombe. Despite the frequent attention and great research interest in animal tool use, and ubiquity of the behavior, we argue here that chewing sticks by dogs (and other animals) should be included as a case of tool use. We discuss alternate possible explanations and then propose several testable predictions regarding this hypothesis. We suggest that tool use may be more common than is often assumed and that many cases of animal tool use may be overlooked.

scholarly journals Operationalizing niche construction theory with stone tools

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radu Iovita ◽  
david braun ◽  
Matthew Douglass ◽  
Simon Holdaway ◽  
Sam C. Lin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Extended Phenotype ◽  
Niche Construction Theory ◽  
Dual Inheritance Theory ◽  
Dual Inheritance

One of the greatest difficulties with evolutionary approaches in the study of stone tools (lithics) has been finding a mechanism for tying culture and biology in a way that preserves human agency and operates at scales that are visible in the archaeological record. The concept of niche construction, whereby organisms actively construct their environments and change the conditions for selection, could provide a solution to this problem. In this review, we evaluate the utility of niche construction theory (NCT) for stone tool archaeology. We apply NCT to lithics both as part of the ‘extended phenotype’ and as residuals or precipitates of other niche-constructing activities, suggesting ways in which archaeologists can employ niche construction feedbacks to generate testable hypotheses about stone tool use. Finally, we compare NCT to other prominent evolutionary approaches, such as human behavioral ecology and dual-inheritance theory, concluding that NCT has several advantages.

scholarly journals The material difference in human cognition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karenleigh A. Overmann
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Behavioral Responses ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Phenotypic Change ◽  
Design Features ◽  
Cognitive Evolution ◽  
Ancestral Species ◽  
Psychological Change

Humans leverage material forms for unique cognitive purposes: We recruit and incorporate them into our cognitive system, exploit them to accumulate and distribute cognitive effort, and use them to recreate phenotypic change in new individuals and generations. These purposes are exemplified by writing, a relatively recent tool that has become highly adept at eliciting specific psychological and behavioral responses in its users, capability it achieved by changing in ways that facilitated, accumulated, and distributed incremental behavioral and psychological change between individuals and generations. Writing is described here as a self-organizing system whose design features reflect points of maximal usefulness that emerged under sustained collective use of the tool. Such self-organization may hold insights applicable to human cognitive evolution and tool use more generally. Accordingly, this article examines the emergence of the ability to leverage material forms for cognitive purposes, using the tool-using behaviors and lithic technologies of ancestral species and contemporary non-human primates as proxies for matters like collective use, generational sustainment, and the nonteleological emergence of design features.

scholarly journals An earlier origin for stone tool making: implications for cognitive evolution and the transition to Homo

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1698) ◽  
pp. 20150233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason E. Lewis ◽  
Sonia Harmand
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Cognitive Evolution ◽  
Major Transitions ◽  
Evolutionary Changes ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Behavioural Diversity

The discovery of the earliest known stone tools at Lomekwi 3 (LOM3) from West Turkana, Kenya, dated to 3.3 Ma, raises new questions about the mode and tempo of key adaptations in the hominin lineage. The LOM3 tools date to before the earliest known fossils attributed to Homo at 2.8 Ma. They were made and deposited in a more C 3 environment than were the earliest Oldowan tools at 2.6 Ma. Their discovery leads to renewed investigation on the timing of the emergence of human-like manipulative capabilities in early hominins and implications for reconstructing cognition. The LOM3 artefacts form part of an emerging paradigm shift in palaeoanthropology, in which: tool-use and tool-making behaviours are not limited to the genus Homo ; cranial, post-cranial and behavioural diversity in early Homo is much wider than previously thought; and these evolutionary changes may not have been direct adaptations to living in savannah grassland environments. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Major transitions in human evolution'.

scholarly journals The material difference in human cognition

2020 ◽  
pp. 105971232093073
Author(s):  
Karenleigh A Overmann
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Behavioral Responses ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Phenotypic Change ◽  
Design Features ◽  
Cognitive Evolution ◽  
Ancestral Species ◽  
Psychological Change

Humans leverage material forms for unique cognitive purposes: We recruit and incorporate them into our cognitive system, exploit them to accumulate and distribute cognitive effort, and use them to recreate phenotypic change in new individuals and generations. These purposes are exemplified by writing, a relatively recent tool that has become highly adept at eliciting specific psychological and behavioral responses in its users, capability it achieved by changing in ways that facilitated, accumulated, and distributed incremental behavioral and psychological change between individuals and generations. Writing is described here as a self-organizing system whose design features reflect points of maximal usefulness that emerged under sustained collective use of the tool. Such self-organization may hold insights applicable to human cognitive evolution and tool use more generally. Accordingly, this article examines the emergence of the ability to leverage material forms for cognitive purposes, using the tool-using behaviors and lithic technologies of ancestral species and contemporary non-human primates as proxies for matters like collective use, generational sustainment, and the non-teleological emergence of design features.

Cognitive Paleoanthropology and Technology: Toward a Parsimonious Theory (PATH)

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 292-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
François Osiurak
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Behavioral Characteristics ◽  
Potential Solution ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Cognitive Evolution ◽  
Semantic Reasoning ◽  
Genus Homo ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Evolution Of Technology ◽  
Good Starting Point

Tool use in humans and hominins (i.e., extant relatives to humans) is unique in several respects. To date, no attempt has been made to review the main patterns of tool behavior specific to these species as well as to integrate them into a coherent framework. The aim here is to fill this gap by (a) identifying these behavioral specificities and (b) trying to explain the greatest number of these specificities with the lowest number of cognitive mechanisms. Based on this approach, this article provides a potential solution, namely, the PArsimonious THeory of hominin technology (PATH), aiming to account for the cognitive origins of 4 behavioral characteristics: transfer, complex tool use, secondary tool use, and tool saving. A key hypothesis is that the emergence of 2 breaking mechanisms—technical reasoning and semantic reasoning—could have boosted hominin technology. PATH offers an original framework for understanding the most archaic, human cognitive traits, thereby providing a good starting point for future investigation about the cognitive evolution of technology in the genus Homo.

Biomechanical Analysis of Tool Use

2012 ◽  
Vol 220 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Biryukova ◽  
Blandine Bril
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Biomechanical Analysis

Internal Models and Body Schema in Tool Use

2012 ◽  
Vol 220 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Rieger
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
Internal Models

Assimilation-error in tool use as a question of reference system

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Ladwig ◽  
C. Sutter ◽  
J. Musseler ◽  
K. Wendler ◽  
F. Bade
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Reference System
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