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1 results

  • Symmetry is its own reward: on the character and significance of Acheulean handaxe symmetry in the Middle Pleistocene

  • Mark White, Frederick Foulds
  • Journal:
    Antiquity / Volume 92 / Issue 362 / April 2018
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    24 April 2018, pp. 304-319
    Print publication:
    April 2018
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  • Bilateral symmetry in handaxes has significant implications for hominin cognitive and socio-behavioural evolution. Here the authors show that high levels of symmetry occur in the British Late Middle Pleistocene Acheulean, which they consider to be a deliberate, socially mediated act. Furthermore, they argue that lithic technology in general, and handaxes in particular, were part of a pleasure-reward system linked to dopamine-releasing neurons in the brain. Making handaxes made Acheulean hominins happy, and one particularly pleasing property was symmetry.