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 ...
People who have never touched a tool- it’s so bouregois.
bkmk
Barter is pretty old, but there are no historical accounts about this tools-as-money period, or even about the early days of bartering. One complaint I have about this idea though is best summed up right here:
Large stone donuts were used as the first credit cards.
shoot, I also wanted the link to the topic about the cratering of long bonds.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2859258/posts
There might be much more recent and closer to home examples of tools to strengthen the point.
I had the opportunity to visit Cahokia and the fabulous museum there. Of much interest were products available there from distant locations. Copper from Minnesota/Michigan, mica from North Carolina and shells from the Gulf and perhaps the Gulf of California. Also present were exhibits on two locations for the manufacture and repair of celts, stone axes used with a wood haft. There were a hundred or so in both of the shops
This was of interest to me because as a young man my uncle plowing on a Clinch River bottom in East Tennessee turned one up in excellent condition. I did some research for him and discovered one virtually identical for sale found a hundred miles or so north on the Clinch in South west Virginia. They seem identical to those being manufactured in the Cahokia shop.
When sites are found to be large, it’s safe to assume that there was an economic reason, until proven otherwise. :’)
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