Tool Use from a Perception–Action Perspective: Developmental and Evolutionary Considerations

One way to resolve the apparent paradox be-tween the early appearance of tools in the lithic record and the cognitive skills that have been postulated as underlying their production and use is to maintain that some of our hominin ancestors possessed the requisite representational abilities to accomplish these technological feats. On this view, tool use is a cognitive achievement, albeit one that occurred relatively early within the context of hominin evolution. Such an account, however, would also need to explain the types of additional developments that un-derlie subsequent evolutionary advances in tool use. In this regard, investigators have invoked a variety of psychological and physical factors. These factors include increases in brain or cognitive capacity, the emergence of language, changes in the anatomy and biomechanical properties of the hand (Marzke 1997; Marzke & Marzke 2000) and the appearance of new sociocognitive capacities that enable individuals to learn from and teach others (Tomasello 1998). Un-doubtedly, these factors acting in concert underlie the remarkable degree to which tool use is infused in modern-day human society. Nevertheless, this type of cognitive account implies that even our primitive hominin ancestors possessed a sophisticated cognitiv