Archaeological Anthropology Commons^™

Seeing Is Evolving: Biocultural Evolution Of Refractive Error And Stone Tool Industries, Erin Mcquillan-Hicks

Anthropology Undergraduate Senior Theses

While previous studies have examined different aspects of hominin Biocultural evolution and stone tools, this project will consider the role which vision might have had in tool production. Paralleling Key and Lycett's line of argument, we believe that vision would have played just as integral a role in producing an ideal cutting tool as precision gripping. If a certain type of vision was "adaptive" to stone tool synthesis, then this would explain its frequency in modern human populations. Consequently, this study will attempt to answer why there is such a significant number of individuals possessing seemingly maladaptive visual errors in …