Abstract
Mobile containers are a keystone human innovation. Ethnographic data indicate that all human groups use containers such as bags, quivers and baskets, ensuring that individuals have important resources at the ready and are prepared for opportunities and threats before they materialize. Although there is speculation surrounding the invention of carrying devices, the current hard archaeological evidence only reaches back some 100,000 years. The dearth of ancient evidence may reflect not only taphonomic processes, but also a lack of attention to these devices. To begin investigating the origins of carrying devices we focus on exploring the basic cognitive processes involved in mobile container use and report an initial study on young children's understanding and deployment of such devices. We gave 3- to 7-year-old children (N = 106) the opportunity to spontaneously identify and use a basket to increase their own carrying capacity and thereby obtain more resources in the future. Performance improved linearly with age, as did the likelihood of recognizing that adults use mobile carrying devices to increase carrying capacity. We argue that the evolutionary and developmental origins of mobile containers reflect foundational cognitive processes that enable humans to think about their own limits and compensate for them.
Highlights
Humans frequently use mobile containers – such as bags, pockets or slings – to carry resources and tools
Review of the ethnographic literature describing the lifeways of hunter–gatherer communities in Africa, Australia, Asia and the Americas finds the following specific mentions of mobile container use: Bathing
We find that very little is currently understood about the ontogeny of the mental capacities involved in mobile container use, and for that reason we present a pilot study that takes some initial steps towards filling out this component of Tinbergen’s framework
Summary
Humans frequently use mobile containers – such as bags, pockets or slings – to carry resources and tools. A related distinction can be made in the use of mobile carrying devices to transport items, in that a choice is made to offload physical labour onto an external artefact rather than to solely depend on the body Often, this choice arises from understanding the limits of one’s natural carrying capacity, and seeking to expand this limit through artificial means. We are not aware of any studies directly examining children’s appreciation of the utility of mobile containers as physical offloading devices, even young infants may have some understanding of the general concept of containment (Hespos & Baillargeon, 2001), and four-year-olds can secure a tool in a provided container for a return to a problem they had encountered earlier (Redshaw & Suddendorf, 2013). To examine at what point children can reflect on their own physical limits sufficiently to initiate compensatory strategies, we designed the following pilot study of children’s understanding and use of mobile containers
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