"Indeed yes," said D-squared. "I daresay it is an archetype." He paused for a swallow. "One can only speculate as to its origins. Why is the serpent an archetype? Because snakes have been biting our ancestors for millions of years: long enough for our fear of them to have been ensconced in our brainstems by the processes of natural selection." Another swallow. Then a shrug. "Hominids have been making stone tools since long before Homo sapiens existed. They must have noticed that certain types of stone made better tools than others."