pete  wrote 

> If a primate got into the habit of throwing rocks at animals,
> to the extent where it was an important part of the lifestyle,
> then they would carry good throwing rocks. Perhaps they wouldn't 
> carry them all the time. They might collect good throwing rocks 
> and leave them in a handy place.
> 
> I think of rock throwing as being the natural precurssor to 
> flintknapping:

Good comments.  

I agree, as you indicate, that rock throwing might be an important 
part of a lifestyle that would serve as a preadaptation to more 
sophisticated tool usage.  This raises questions about A'pith 
lifestyle.  What was this lifestyle and how was rock throwing 
adaptive in the context of this lifestyle?

One of the things that I think a lot of people overlook when 
considering such questions is why is rock-throwing so incredibly 
rare in the animal world?  Rocks have been around for eternity.  
It would seem that if rock throwing was such a viable strategy that 
a lot of other species would employ it.  But they don't.  Why not?

I think part of the answer to this question has to do with the fact 
that it takes a considerable amount of morphological and behavioral 
specialization to be effective as a rock thrower.  Thus the 
morphological costs are very high.  And the selective benefits are 
low.  Or, at least, this seems to have been the case with all 
lineages except homonids.

Further complicating this notion is the fact that chimps (and 
therefore, presumably, the LCA) are pretty lousy rock throwers.  
It's hard to imagine how the LCA would get a selective benefit from 
rock throwing.  But I think we should consider all of the potential 
variations before we dismiss the possibility that rock throwing 
might have--in some way or another--been selectively advantageous.  

Observation of extant chimps reveals that rock throwing, stick 
wielding behavior takes place in the context of highly emotional, 
group oriented activity: monkey-see monkey-do collective temper 
tantrums.  And, it is highly inaccurate and ineffective toward any 
practical end except to dissuade or scare-off predators and/or other 
species who might compete with them for resources.  Putting these 
two observations together I think we can draw the following 
conclusions about how this behavior could have originally been 
selectively advantageous:
1) It would have to involve large groups of these chimpanzee-like 
hominids (A'piths); the larger the better.
2) It would have to involve situational factors in which maintenance 
of territorial resources was a matter of life and death.

I think these conclusions are consistent with the fact that humans 
are the most communal (large groups) and territorial species that 
has ever existed.  

These conclusions also suggest situational factors that are very 
much different than what is currently assumed by conventional 
theorist of human evolution.

Jim
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