Posted on 03/14/2012 7:30:14 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Hand axes, small handheld stone tools used by ancient humans, could have served as the first commodity in the human world thanks to their durability and utility.
The axes may have been traded between human groups and would have served as a social cue to others, Mimi Lam, a researcher from the University of British Columbia, suggested in her talk at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting here on Feb. 18.
"The Acheulean hand ax was standardized and shaped, became exchanged in social networks and took on a symbolic meaning," Lam said. "My suggestion was that hand axes were the first commodity: A marketable good or service that has value and is used as an item for exchange."
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Examples of hand axes from about 250,000 to 700,000 years ago contain some of these special properties, such as being made of pink rock or rock embedded with fossils. Ancient humans also made large axes that stood out from the crowd.
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Hand axes were so important to ancient humans that they developed as icons and symbols that are still used by society. (For example, they are frequently found on the covers of metal albums.) These tools eventually transformed into being used as literal currency. The Chinese exchanged tools as money, which eventually turned into representations of tools, which were even featured on coins.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Examples of hand axes found in Kenya, which indicate that early humans were using stone hand axes as far back as 1.8 million years ago. [CREDIT: Pierre-Jean Texier, National Center of Scientific Research, France]
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Renfield. |
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They did have branch banks, though.
Under shade trees.
Im Thinking Rachuel Welch at a footpath intersection,with various axes knives etc.With a sign saying +Got meat?+
They look like Klansmen.
Now they use machetes.
Hand axes, small handheld stone tools used by ancient humans, could have served as the first commodity in the human world thanks to their durability and utility.
Then Democrats were the first Tool Thieves.
“Money” had to be of universal value. Food spoiled too quickly. Tools make sense before actual coinage, though after the knife and axe not everyone neccesarily needed the same tool kit.
You guys have plenty of tools and these unfortunate sloths down by the river stayed too long after the fish quit running and are now cold.
By the way, instead of axes can we give them some of your wood?
And so, the Democrat Party was born...
Got change of a hammer?
No, but I’ll axe around.
“I got me an appointment with a hardware store. I’m not saying I want to do it for the rest of my life, but, uh, hardware fascinates me. Don’t you love to make a key?”
Then pawn shops must have been the first businesses.
You can usually pick one up at the pawn shop real cheap near the end of the month.
Now, tools of an entirely different variety are ruining our money.
You get it.
Come on now, there were lots of cultures up to the twentieth century which did not use money. They bartered for what they need, had gift exchanges, raided and traded between villages. To say that tools were money is silly, for so were furs, skins, meat, shells, pretty stones, cool feathers, animals, women, children, baskets and just about everything people had could be wealth. So a stone tool is wealth but so was everything else, don’t these guys read historical accounts?
What did the ‘oldest profession’ use for payment/barter? Axes?
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