Did Tools Create Humans?

Abstract

The conception and creation of tools, their design, refinements and uses are traditionally viewed as being direct elaborations of inherent human capabilities. Here, we offer an alternative to this traditional perspective. Using a tool to complete any given task serves to change that task which, in turn, impacts and alters the tools’ user via the performance of current and subsequent tasks. Moreover, as each task evolves, humans have come to shape additional tools to respond accordingly. These ever-increasing complexifications then serve to stimulate expansion in inherent human cognitive capabilities themselves. Here, we do not view humans as the initial creators of tools. Rather, the a priori presence of tools in the ambient environment explains, ab initio, why the species homo sapiens has evolved in the way that history records. We thus propose that tools create humans. The subsequent symbiosis between humans and those tools, portrayed as a cumulative spiral structure, serves to frame this evolution of elaborative technologies that have been used across time to achieve socially desired objectives. From our premise, we envision evident lines of progress that can be anticipated for the future of this human-tool dyad.

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