The Case Against Sexual Selection as an Explanation of Handaxe Morphology.

Abstract

Many explanations have been put forward to account for the distinctive symmetrical teardrop shape of Acheulian handaxes but none is perhaps as controversial as the sexual selection hypothesis. In this paper, we outline the necessary assumptions and conditions underlying the argument for sexual selection as an explanation for handaxe morphology, critique this argument on the basis of the available evidence from comparative ethology, experimen-tal psychology, and the archaeological record, and present several more parsimonious alternative explanations that are directly based on this available hard data.