The importance of conveyIng visual Information in Acheuleansociety. The background to the visual display hypothesis

This paper is intended to provoke discussion. It is based on asking two simple questions, both of which are inter-related. The first is: what would it be like to live in an Acheulean social group? The second is: how would Acheulean flint knappers learn their craft in an Acheulean social group? The premise is as follows. In a hominin species which does not possess the linguistic capability of a modern human (in terms of the physical ability to produce speech as we understand it), or the cognitive capability to imbue speech with abstract meaning (i.e. the capacity for symbolic understanding that we can achieve), information exchange must be primarily visual. Information and knowledge designed to change the mental and behavioural state of another individual will have to be generated, disseminated, and understood through visual acts. Comparisons with the natural world suggest that display behaviour may be a key factor in this. This paper does not discuss what is being displayed and how. Instead it looks at the underlying mechanisms that could have contributed to focusing and enhancing individual perception of visual stimuli.