Human handedness is likely related to brain lateralization and major cognitive innovations in human evolution. Identifying handedness in the archaeological record is,
therefore, an important step in understanding our cognitive evolution. This thesis reports
on experiments in identifying knapper handedness in lithic debitage. I conducted a blind
study on flakes (n=631) from Acheulean handaxes replicated by right- and left-handed
flintknappers. Several flake characteristics significantly indicated handedness, with a
binary logistic regression correctly predicting handedness for 71.7% of the flakes.
However, other characteristics were not associated with handedness. This is a result of
personal knapping styles, as additional analyses show that individual knappers associate
with some attributes better than handedness does. Continued work on these methodologies will enable analysis of Paleolithic assemblages in the future, with the ultimate goal of tracking population-level hominid handedness rates through time and using them as a proxy for cognitive evolution and language acquisition. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fau.edu/oai:fau.digital.flvc.org:fau_30814 |
| Contributors | Ruck, Lana (author), Broadfield, Douglas C. (Thesis advisor), Florida Atlantic University (Degree grantor), Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Anthropology |
| Publisher | Florida Atlantic University |
| Source Sets | Florida Atlantic University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 146 p., application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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