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This chapter discusses the use of the terms symbols, symbolism, and symboling in the archaeological literature. The lack of definition and any grounding in cognitive theory makes identifying prehistoric symbols and symboling more art than science. A multiplicity of claims from the literature highlight the tendency to claim almost any form from any...
In this introductory essay to The Oxford handbook of cognitive archaeology, we present and define the field, distinguishing it within the broader discipline as the branch concerned with human cognition and typically adopting cognitive paradigms as the basis for its interpretations. We discuss the two main investigatory branches, the Evolutionary Co...
In discussions of the Neandertal extinction, morphological differences in brain shape and brain regions between Homo sapiens and Neandertals are often ignored or dismissed as inconsequential, despite the fact that skull shape is diagnostic of the species to which a specimen belongs. The purpose of the present chapter is to discuss the potential cog...
This landmark publication represents a truly global field, with contributions from scholars from Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. It emphasizes the "doing" of cognitive archaeology, not merely its theories and methods, with contributions that range from the oldest known stone tools to ceramic and rock art traditions of the recent...
In this introductory essay to The Oxford handbook of cognitive archaeology, we present and define the field, distinguishing it within the broader discipline as the branch concerned with human cognition and typically adopting cognitive paradigms as the basis for its interpretations. We discuss the two main investigatory branches, the Evolutionary Co...
This paper discusses the use of the terms symbols, symbolism, and symbolling in the archaeological literature. The lack of definition and any grounding in cognitive theory makes identifying prehistoric symbols and symbolling more art than science. A multiplicity of claims from the literature highlights the tendency to claim almost any form from any...
In discussions of the Neandertal extinction, morphological differences in brain shape and brain regions between Homo sapiens and Neandertals are often ignored or dismissed as inconsequential, despite the fact that skull shape is diagnostic of the species to which a specimen belongs. The purpose of the present chapter is to discuss the potential cog...
In this introductory essay to The Oxford handbook of cognitive archaeology, we present and define the field, distinguishing it within the broader discipline as the branch concerned with human cognition and typically adopting cognitive paradigms as the basis for its interpretations. We discuss the two main investigatory branches, the Evolutionary Co...
Talk presented to "Spacious Spatiality," Society for Multidisciplinary and Fundamental Research (SEMF), University of Edinburgh, 26 May 2022. We explore the evolutionary emergence of modern spatial abilities, as reconstructed from the archaeological record of stone tools, a record that spans over three million years. This record shows that the abil...
Recursion is a topic of considerable controversy in linguistics, which stems from its varying definitions and its key features, such as its universality, uniqueness to human language, and evolution. Currently, there appear to be at least two common senses of recursion: (1) embeddedness of phrases within other phrases, which entails keeping track of...
Carey leaves unaddressed an important evolutionary puzzle: In the absence of a numeral list, how could a concept of natural number ever have arisen in the first place? Here we suggest that the initial development of natural number must have bootstrapped on a material culture scaffold of some sort, and illustrate how this might have occurred using s...
In this chapter, we suggest that a specific cognitive ability, an enhancement to working memory, was one of the key evolutionary acquisitions in human cognition, and indeed may even be the smoking gun of modernity. We demonstrate that Baddeley’s central executive, a key component of his Working Memory (WM) model, is synonymous with the basic execut...
Cognitive archaeology uses cognitive and psychological models to interpret the archaeological record. This chapter outlines several components that may be essential in building effective cognitive archaeological arguments. It also presents a two-stage perspective for the development of modern cognition, primarily based upon the work of Coolidge and...
This chapter examines the evolution of number concept, via the ability to conceive of and use other representations of quantity. It approaches the evolution of number concept via the development of the concept in children. It finds that the child's acquisition of the concept leans heavily on the language scaffold of labelling. It considers the noti...
In this chapter, the authors apply cognitive neuroscience, gene–culture co-evolution, and extended cognition to account for the evolution of an unusual neurologically grounded trait—the ability to arrange items in ordered sequences. Cognitive neuroscience strongly suggests that the human ability to conceive of and use ordinal sequences such as alph...
This essay introduces a special issue focused on 4E cognition (cognition as embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended) in the Lower Palaeolithic. In it, we review the typological and representational cognitive approaches that have dominated the past 50 years of paleoanthropology. These have assumed that all representations and computations take pl...
In this paper, we examine the role of materiality in human cognition. We address issues such as the ways in which brain functions may change in response to interactions with material forms, the attributes of material forms that may cause change in brain functions, and the spans of time required for brain functions to reorganize when interacting wit...
In the debate about the demise of the Neandertal, several scholars have claimed that humanity’s nearest relatives were indistinguishable archaeologically, and thus behaviorally and cognitively, from contemporaneous Homo sapiens. They suggest that to hold otherwise is to characterize Neandertals as inferior to H. sapiens, a false dichotomy that excl...
Using a model of cognition as extended and enactive, we examine the role of materiality in making minds as exemplified by lithics and writing, forms associated with conceptual thought and meta-awareness of conceptual domains. We address ways in which brain functions may change in response to interactions with material forms, the attributes of mater...
This essay introduces a special issue focused on 4E cognition (cognition as embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended) in the Lower Palaeolithic. In it, we review the typological and representational cognitive approaches that have dominated the past fifty years of paleoanthropology. These have assumed that all representations and computations take...
This special issue of Adaptive Behavior focuses on 4E cognition (cognition as embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended) in the Lower Palaeolithic. In the introductory essay, we review the typological and representational cognitive approaches that have dominated the past fifty years of paleoanthropology. These have assumed that all representations...
Traditional typological, technical, and cognitive approaches to early stone tools have taken an implicit Cartesian stance concerning the nature of mind. In many cases, this has led to interpretations of early technology that overemphasize its human-like features. By eschewing an epistemic mediator, 4E approaches to cognition (embodied, embedded, en...
To be able to maintain sensory information long enough to make decisions is a characteristic of all living things, including single cells, plants, and animals. The maintenance of sensory information despite interference is also a generic definition of working memory, and thus, its evolution began with the very first forms of life. In contrast to th...
Cognitive archaeology may be divided into two branches. Evolutionary cognitive archaeology (ECA) is the discipline of prehistoric archaeology that studies the evolution of human cognition. Practitioners are united by a methodological commitment to the idea that archaeological traces of past activity provide access to the minds of the agents respons...
The range of evidence at the archaeological site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY) provides a window into the minds of 800,000-year-old Acheulian ho-minins. Detailed action sequences used in stone tool manufacture, and in the exploitation of animals (over 70 taxa) and plants (over 130 taxa) are recon-structed, suggesting hierarchically organized decisi...
Using a combined model from cognitive anthropology and cognitive psychology, the authors present the Expert Performance Model of technical cognition. The model emphasizes the combined action of working memory and long-term memory in which an expert develops rapid access to large procedural encodings held in long-term memory. Such expertise takes ye...
Symmetry is a morphological variable that has cognitive significance and is among the most important factors for the manufacture and function of a lithic point. The central idea of this research is that symmetry, alongside the other quantitative variables, plays a role in determining the changing nature of lithic points in the Middle Paleolithic. A...
The discovery in FLK West lowermost level 6 (Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania) of a massive and symmetrical handaxe, at odds both with the other LCT specimens so far unearthed from this site and with the technological traits commonly reported for the earliest Acheulean ca. 1.7 Ma, challenges the hypothesis of a gradual development of technological and cogni...
From an evolutionary perspective, it is unlikely that the modern human aesthetic sensibility emerged fully formed 40,000 years ago. Rather than positing antecedents that left little or no archaeological trace, in this chapter, concepts derived from neuroaesthetics are applied this chapter applies concepts derived from neuroaesthetics to evidence th...
Contributions to evolutionary cognitive archaeology (ECA) now present a wide range of commitments to cognitive science itself. It is still common to find quasi-cognitive approaches that rely on terms with little to no grounding in formal cognitive science, but which also have practical utility, especially when discussing technical cognition. Many E...
In this paper, we examine the role of materiality in human cognition. We address issues such as the ways in which brain functions may change in response to interactions with material forms, the attributes of material forms that may cause change in brain functions, and the spans of time required for brain functions to reorganize when interacting wit...
Using a model of cognition as extended and enactive, we examine the role of materiality in making minds as exemplified by lithics and writing, forms associated with conceptual thought and meta-awareness of conceptual domains. We address ways in which brain functions may change in response to interactions with material forms, the attributes of mater...
There is evidence that recognizes the importance of symmetry in the study of the evolution of hominid cognition. The development of stone tools parallels the evolution of human cognition. The last three decades have used quantitative methods that the most important of which is Symmetry Index. This paper proposes a new methodology for measuring the...
The Acheulean handaxe is one of the longest-known and longest-surviving artifacts of the Palaeolithic and, despite its experimentally tested functionality, is often regarded as puzzling. It is unnecessary to invoke a unique-for-mammals genetic mechanism to explain the handaxe phenomenon. Instead, we propose that two nongenetic processes are suffici...
Stone cleavers are one of the most distinctive components of the Acheulian toolkit. These tools were produced as part of a long and complex reduction sequence and they provide indications for planning and remarkable knapping skill. These aspects hold implications regarding the cognitive complexity and abilities of their makers and users. In this st...
Blank and dorsal-distal modification type for each of the artifacts included in the analysis.
(DOCX)
Cognitive archaeology studies human cognitive evolution by applying cognitive-science theories and concepts to archaeological remains of the prehistoric past. After reviewing the basic epistemological stance of cognitive archaeology, this article illustrates this interdisciplinary endeavor through an examination of two of the most important transit...
How did the human mind evolve? How and when did we come to think in the ways we do? The last thirty years have seen an explosion in research related to the brain and cognition. This research has encompassed a range of biological and social sciences, from epigenetics and cognitive neuroscience to social and developmental psychology. Following natura...
It is well accepted that a grade shift occurred in hominin evolution approximately 1.9 million years ago with the appearance of Homo erectus. With the challenges of complete terrestrial life, new cognitive abilities were selected for that allowed this species to thrive for the next million and a half years. It has also long been recognized that the...
Recognising elements of a ‘modern’ mind or complex cognition in Stone Age archaeology is difficult and often disputed. A key question is whether, and in what way, the thinking of Homo sapiens differs from that of other species/sub-species of hominins. We argue that if the question of whether the modern mind is different from that of our ancestors o...
In the debate about the demise of the Neandertal, several scholars have claimed that humanity’s nearest relatives were indistinguishable archaeologically, and thus behaviorally and cognitively, from contemporaneous Homo sapiens. They suggest that to hold otherwise is to characterize Neandertals as inferior to H. sapiens, a false dichotomy that excl...
This essay explores the nature and neurological basis of creativity in technical production. After presenting a model of expert technical cognition based in cognitive anthropology and cognitive psychology, the authors propose that craft production has three inherent sources of novelty — procedural drift, serendipitous error and fiddling. However, t...
Cognitive archaeology uses cognitive and psychological models to interpret the archaeological record. This chapter outlines several components that may be essential in building effective cognitive archaeological arguments. It also presents a two-stage perspective for the development of modern cognition, primarily based upon the work of Coolidge and...
A brief examination of the cognitive implications of the Lӧwenmensch or Lion Man, the Ice Age figurine that is a lion–human hybrid. Its form reveals that the prehistoric artisan relied on well-defined concepts of “lion” and “human,” demonstrating abilities for categorization and abstraction and the use of working memory.
This chapter examines the evolution of number concept, via the ability to conceive of and use other representations of quantity. It approaches the evolution of number concept via the development of the concept in children. It finds that the child's acquisition of the concept leans heavily on the language scaffold of labelling. It considers the noti...
The Foundations of Cognitive Archaeology. Abramiuk Marc A. . 2012. MIT Press, Cambndge, Massachusetts. 316 pp. $40.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0262-01768-8. - Volume 78 Issue 2 - Thomas Wynn
In this chapter, we suggest that a specific cognitive ability, an enhancement to working memory, was one of the key evolutionary acquisitions in human cognition, and indeed may even be the smoking gun of modernity. We demonstrate that Baddeley’s central executive, a key component of his Working Memory (WM) model, is synonymous with the basic execut...
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcs.131/abstract
Recursion is a topic of considerable controversy in linguistics, which stems from its varying definitions and its key features, such as its universality, uniqueness to human language, and evolution. Currently, there appear to be at least two common senses of recursion: (1) embeddedness of...
In 1989, Wynn and McGrew published an explicit comparison between Oldowan technology and what was then known of chimpanzee technology. They compared the range and variety of tools, adaptive role of tools, carrying distances, spatial cognition, manufacturing procedures, and modes of learning. They concluded that everything archeologists had reconstr...
Carey leaves unaddressed an important evolutionary puzzle: In the absence of a numeral list, how could a concept of natural number ever have arisen in the first place? Here we suggest that the initial development of natural number must have bootstrapped on a material culture scaffold of some sort, and illustrate how this might have occurred using s...
What distinguishes the cognition of biologically modern humans from that of more archaic populations such as Neandertals? The norm in paleoanthropology has been to emphasize the role of language and symbolism. But the modern mind is more than just an archaic mind enhanced by symbol use. It also possesses an important problem solving and planning co...
Despite 20 years of concerted attention, paleoanthropology has established little of substance concerning the evolution of the modern mind, if by substance we mean conclusions that would be of interest and use to scholars of human cognition. Part of this failure can be linked to a poverty of appropriate interpretive concepts. There is more to the m...
For the last two decades, a major question for paleoanthropologists has been the origins of modernity and modern thinking. Explanations such as symbolic culture, fully syntactic language, or abstract reasoning are all too often proffered without clear or adequate operationalizations. It is purpose of the present paper to suggest both an evolutionar...
Modern cognition is more than language and symbolism. One important component of modern thinking is expertise, exemplified best in expert performances in the arts, craft production, sport, medicine, and games such as chess. Expertise is driven by a cognitive system known as long-term working memory, in which retrieval structures held in long-term m...
Recursion is considered to be the hallmark of modern language. This chapter addresses fundamental questions about its evolutionary emergence: 'What is the relationship of recursion to modern language and thinking?' and 'What might be the mechanism or subspecies of recursion that bestows its advantages to cognition?' In addressing these questions, e...
The Evolutionary Fate of Homo erectusPleistocene Climate ChangeStasis or Change?Middle Pleistocene ArcheologyCognition at 400,000 Years AgoConclusion: Puzzles and PicturesThe Jigsaw Puzzle
BrainsAnthropoid BrainsApe BrainsThe Machiavellian Hypothesis and Theory of Mind
Ontogeny of the BrainOther Subcortical Brain StructuresHandednessEars and HearingEyes and VisionSplit-Brain StudiesBrain Myths
How Brains EvolveEvolutionary PsychologyThe Role of ConstraintThe Metabolic Trade-offSummaryMethods of Study
Executive Functions of the Frontal Lobes: A New Perspective on an Old StoryTwo Leaps in CognitionThis Book
Grades and CladesDescriptionNeandertal ArcheologyNeandertal CognitionThe Neandertal Role in Human Evolution
NariokotomeHomo erectus sensu latoMode 2 TechnologyHandednessFireThe Homo erectus Adaptive NicheThe Weed HypothesisHomo erectus Cognition
The Central ExecutivePhonological LoopVisuospatial SketchpadEpisodic bufferA Memory PrimerWorking Memory CapacityHeritability of Working MemorySummary
Who's WhoWe Are All AfricansThe Archeology of Modern HumansThe European Upper PaleolithicA Small but Significant DifferenceA Heritable Event Leads to Enhanced Working MemoryThe Archeology of Executive Functions and Enhanced Working MemoryThe Wrench in the Monkey WorksBlombos Cave and the Enigma of Early Anatomically Modern HumansWhy Doesn't Symbol...
The Common AncestorThe Early Bipedal Apes: 7–2.5 Million Years AgoThe First Stone Knappers 2.6–1.5 MaFossils of Early HomoSummaryA Grade Shift?
Cognitive neuroscience provides a powerful perspective on the brain and cognition from which archaeologists can begin to document the evolution of the human mind. The following essay uses the Hohlenstein-Stadel figurine as a starting point to demonstrate the two kinds of conclusion open to an evolutionary cognitive archaeology: first, describing fe...
Ce livre présente de nouvelles perspectives sur l'archéologie cognitive. Cherchant à comprendre comment différents processus cognitifs se sont développés au cours de l'évolution, les auteurs s'appuient sur des données empiriques et livrent des réflexions théoriques qui intéressent aussi l'évolution de la cognition chez l'homme moderne. Il relève à...
Paleoanthropologists believe that the reason behind the survival of Homo sapiens and the extinction of Neandertals is attributed to certain cognitive abilities. It may have been Homo sapiens' capacity to use symbols as an aid in abstract thought, the human facility for language and the ability to plan and strategize. Neandertals suite of mental abi...
Copyright © 2006 by SAGE Publications If cinema may potentially recast what is most fundamental to literature, Henri-Georges Clouzot's version of Prévost's Manon Lescaut assumes its duty to show the once hidden heroine by transferring the novel to the early days of post-war France. Following an analysis of Maupassant's critique of the novel, in whi...
Just as the study of great apes aids in the understanding of early hominid evolution, so too can contemporary dream research help in the understanding of ancient hominid dream life and cognitive evolution. It has been proffered that a major leap forward in the cognitive evolution of hominoids may first have occurred in the building of nests, and a...
This article examines the possible origins of modern thinking by evaluating the cognitive models of working memory, executive functions and their interrelationship. We propose that a genetic mutation affected neural networks in the prefrontal cortex approximately 60,000 to 130,000 years ago. Our review of cognitive and archaeological evidence yield...
Cognitive neuropsychology, cognitive anthropology, and cognitive archaeology are combined to yield a picture of Neandertal cognition in which expert performance via long-term working memory is the centerpiece of problem solving. This component of Neandertal cognition appears to have been modern in scope. However, Neandertals' working memory capacit...
Châtelperronian is the term used for a distinctive archaeological assemblage found in areas of southwestern France and northern Spain. Neandertals appear to have been responsible for the artifacts, but some of the artifact types represent a significant change from those used in the previous 200,000 years of Neandertal culture. Two alternative inter...
Models of working memory challenge some aspects of Carruthers’ account but enhance others. Although the nature of the phonological store and central executive appear fully congruent with Carruthers’ proposal, current models of the visuo-spatial sketchpad provide a better account of skilled action. However, Carruthers’ model may provide a way around...
Archaeology can provide two bodies of information relevant to the understanding of the evolution of human cognition--the timing of developments, and the evolutionary context of these developments. The challenge is methodological. Archaeology must document attributes that have direct implications for underlying cognitive mechanisms. One example of s...
Despite challenges on minimum necessary competence, intentionality, reliability, and context, the example of cognitive archaeology presented in the target article holds up well. The commentaries also present perspectives on cognition and symmetry that suggest an alternative to the target article's characterization of the cognitive abilities of earl...
Despite challenges on minimum necessary competence, intentionality, reliability, and context, the example of cognitive archaeology presented in the target article holds up well. The commentaries also present perspectives on cognition and symmetry that suggest an alternative to the target article's characterization of the cognitive abilities of earl...