In his new book, “The Artificial Ape,” http://www.amazon.co.uk/Artificial-Ape-Technology-Changed-Evolution/dp/0230617638 Bradford University anthropologist and archaeologist Timothy Taylor makes the startling claim that we did not make tools, tools made us.

In a fascinating interview with the New Scientist, http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/08/artificial-ape-man-how-technology-created-humans.html, Taylor argues that, apparently – allegedly, as I’m no scientist – the oldest stone tools we’ve found so far are 2.5 million years old, but the genus to which we belong, Homo, is only 2.2 million years old, at least according to the current fossil record. Our species, Homo sapiens, has been around for less time than the gap between tool creation and our genus.

Which means – laymen terms – our earlier ancestors – hominins called australopithecines – created the earliest stone tools, and these tools – this first technology – in turn led to our species to emerge.  

Strikes me Homo Economicus has a choice now. We’ve lived with the stone tools of the balance sheet and the P&L, hand-me-downs from Homo Franciscan who first scribed them into being in 1494 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Pacioli . These parchment tools worked great for counting sheep in an agrarian economy then factory machinery in an industrial one.  

But hold on, aren’t we in a knowledge economy now?

Isn’t it time that we thought through which old reporting relics we want to be handing down, the tools of course that if Taylor is right will in a very real way be shaping not just our future prosperity but also our evolution as a business as well as a species?

Of course, Taylor could be wrong.  But in 2.2 million years time I hope we won’t be still adopting Renaissance tools.

Question is – isn’t a new people balance sheet the domain of HR apes rather than Accounting ones?