Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
Centre for Psychology & Evolution, Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
Evol Anthropol. 2020 Nov;29(6):299-309. doi: 10.1002/evan.21857. Epub 2020 Aug 3.
Mobile carrying devices-slings, bags, boxes, containers, etc.-are a ubiquitous tool form among recent human communities. So ingrained are they to our present lifeways that the fundamental relationship between mobile containers and foresight is easily overlooked, resulting in their significance in the study of human cognitive development being largely unrecognized. Exactly when this game-changing innovation appeared and became an essential component of the human toolkit is currently unknown. Taphonomic processes are obviously a significant factor in this situation; however, we argue that these devices have also not received the attention that they deserve from human evolution researchers. Here we discuss what the current archeological evidence is for Pleistocene-aged mobile containers and outline the various lines of evidence that they provide for the origins and development of human cognitive and cultural behavior.
移动携带设备——吊索、袋子、盒子、容器等——是最近人类社会中无处不在的工具。它们与我们目前的生活方式如此根深蒂固，以至于移动容器和远见之间的基本关系很容易被忽视，导致它们在人类认知发展研究中的重要性在很大程度上未被认识。这种改变游戏规则的创新究竟何时出现并成为人类工具包的重要组成部分目前尚不清楚。埋藏学过程显然是这种情况的一个重要因素；然而，我们认为这些设备也没有得到人类进化研究人员应有的重视。在这里，我们讨论了目前有关更新世时期移动容器的考古证据，并概述了它们为人类认知和文化行为的起源和发展提供的各种证据。
