ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the evolution of the hand, tool use in nonhuman species, hominid tool use and possible commonalities with chimpanzee behavior, the brain circuits that control praxic manipulative skills, clinical evidence from apraxia. It explores that whether humans can accommodate, in evolutionary terms, a possible synthesis between praxis, tool use, and language. Tool use, of course, is not limited to primates or even mammals as a whole, though it may not have been until Homo habilis that it became established as a major behavior pattern. Thomas Wynn, Forrest Tierson, and Craig Palmer-1996 provide an ambitious analysis of the conceptual requirements necessary to achieve the various levels of sophistication apparent in the evolution of hominid tool manufacture. The apparent Oldowan behavior of 2.5 million years ago would at first sight seem to fall within the range of the apes' adaptive grade, with nothing exclusively humanlike in the oldest known archaeological evidence.
