Re: Handaxes - A Brand New Theory

From: Bob Keeter (rkeeter_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 09/28/04 

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 03:46:07 GMT

You dont think that I could allow you to take my name in vain without
offering riposte do you? ;-) I do wish you would have come up with a
better fabrication than "pizza cutter"! After all, everyone knows that when
you open up the box it's already been cut up. Therefore, when there is only
one or at most two hand axe / pizza cutters per pizzaria you could never get
up to the total numbers found! Gotta be something else!

Actually, Richard, I sort of like your idea, modified slightly of course.
You see, the classic Hand Axe is obviously an early mohel. Why dont you
find a nice, freshly flaked obsidian hand axe and model that mohel, perhaps
while running the high hurdles or doing a low crawl on the way to that nice
ripe haggis and bottle of bog-water malt at the finish line!

Cant say that any of it would do much for you or your theory, but then
Darwinian selection is a wonderful thing! 8-) Somehow though, I think that
I will never look at a pizza quite the same!

Regards
bk

"richard01" <richardparker01@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:6e30eb22.0409271103.43f431a2@posting.google.com...
> This group's discussion on Handaxes went nowhere last year. There were
> some very intelligent speculations:
>
> - General paradigm - Was an all-round tool, which, if you used it the
> right way would solve all your handtool problems for the next 2
> million years, and did so, as we can see, because we're still
> here...Maybe, but
>
> - Pauline Ross - Core stuck in ground from which flakes were struck.
> Maybe, but...
>
> - William Calvin - Killer frisbee - if thrown in the right way, will
> fall on a crowding herd and cripple 1 or 2. Maybe, but...
>
> - Hafted tool, stuck on the end of a stick. Yes, I can imagine a 6
> inch long rock on a stick, and I can also imagine the feel when it
> swung down and hit my knee. So...Maybe, but
>
> - Marek Kohn & Stephen Mithen - sexual displays - man had to make
> axeheads in front of women to impress them. So? I've been doing this
> sort of showing off for years - but the last girl I tried to impress
> by eating fire said only that my breath smelled. So...Maybe, but
>
> - I think Bob Keeter thought it was a pizza slicer, but by then, I'd
> read a whole lot of theories, and may have got this one wrong.
> Maybe...but
>
>
>
> I've been leading up to all this because, of course, I HAVE A THEORY.
>
> Just suppose that early homo erectus had a correct sense of decency
> and needed something to cover his private parts. An ideal and
> multi-purpose garment might have been something like a Scotsman's
> sporran; a purse of sorts which hangs down in front. (If he was not up
> to designing trousers, he might also have worn a skirt like a
> Scotsman).
>
> The purse might have been an animal's stomach, say, a bit like a
> Scotsman's haggis.
>
> Such a 'garment' would have met almost all of the aforementioned
> theories:
> - Storage for his 'Swiss Army Knife'
> - Somewhere to keep his original core, getting lighter and lighter as
> he struck flakes off.
> - A holster for his killer frisbee
> - Hafted tool - sorry, but I can't see how this would work - *MISS*
> - A melkin (a garment worn in the 15th century by gentlemen such as
> Henry VIII and Francois I over their pantyhose, which exaggerated
> their endowment) - Kohn/Mithen theory.
> - Pizza slicer - Have you never seen an Italian restaurant cook whip
> his pizza cutter out of the front of his pants?
>
> In addition, it would have been:
> - A primitive form of body armour, covering a part the loss of which
> is not life-threatening, but certainly traumatic.
> - A good reason for his posture, which we have all seen in the
> 'Progress from Ape to Man' cartoon/pictures. Our immediate ancestor is
> always shown crouching a little. Wouldn't you if you had a heavy stone
> hanging between your legs?
> - Another good reason for a human male's erection standing up, and not
> standing out, like a bonobo's (sometime around 2Mya homo erectus had
> to choose between tucking it down or tucking it up - thank God he made
> the right decision, and we're all still here).
> - An explanation for the extraordinary complacency that invented
> nothing new for the next 2 million years - if you'd happened to invent
> the best thing since sliced bread, wouldn't you just sit around for a
> bit, take a six-pack, and watch the Nariokotome Boys vs the
> Zinjanthropus Nutcrackers again and again and again and again?
>
> I expect, and hope, that I will receive some challenges to this
> brilliant and all-inclusive theory.
>
> Regards
>
> Richard

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