Patterns In The Evolution Of Collectibles | Nick Szabo | Unenumerated | 31st July 2016

Why did early humans develop a passion for precious ornamental objects and jewellery? What evolutionary purpose could such “collectibles” serve? “Collectibles have an extremely ancient heritage that must have put them under prolonged evolutionary selection. An evolutionarily gratuitous practice of such substantial cost would have soon died out, but collectibles have been a nearly ubiquitous and important part of human cultures for many tens of millennia and in all parts of the planet to which humans have spread”