Michael J. Walker | Universidad de Murcia (original) (raw)
Papers by Michael J. Walker
XXIV Jornadas de Patrimonio Cultural de la Región de Murcia: 9, 16, 23 y 30 de octubre de 2018, 2018, ISBN 978-84-7564-727-2, págs. 461-468, 2018
Quaternary Science Reviews, 2019
Hitherto unpublished 14 C and 230 The 234 U determinations from Carihuela Cave (Granada province,... more Hitherto unpublished 14 C and 230 The 234 U determinations from Carihuela Cave (Granada province, Andalusia, Spain) raise a possibility of late survival here of Neanderthals and their Mousterian technocomplex into an advanced stage of the Late Pleistocene (MIS-3), when anatomically-modern humans with Upper Palaeolithic toolkits were penetrating the region, and when also several carnivore taxa competed for access to the cave. Previous palaeopalynological studies are reinforced by new pollen analyses of samples extracted from coprolites. The palaeoecological and sedimentological records bear comparison with new data from the Padul peat deposits in the Sierra Nevada, and are in line with the view that there was late persistence of the Mousterian in Granada. There is a pressing need for renewed international multidisciplinary research at Carihuela Cave, with up-to-date lithostratigraphical and dating techniques that can expand on results obtained from fieldwork undertaken by a previous generation of researchers. Carihuela Cave continues to hold out great promise for analysing Neanderthal palaeoecology during the Late Pleistocene up to the appearance in southeastern Iberian Peninsula of anatomically-modern Upper Palaeolithic people, particularly with regard to the earlier phases of the Middle Palaeolithic at the cave which await intensive excavation but apparently extend back in time to the last interglacial period.
The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2015
ABSTRACT
Reflexionamos sobre el concepto de palimpsesto arqueologico y proponemos, desde un enfoque empiri... more Reflexionamos sobre el concepto de palimpsesto arqueologico y proponemos, desde un enfoque empirico, la necesidad de diseccionar el registro arqueosedimentario hasta la unidad minima de analisis posible, manifestando la importancia de reconocer la variabi- lidad que muestran los depositos paleoliticos y la exigencia de aplicar diversas analiticas para evaluar de forma correcta los procesos que han actuado en su formacion. En nuestro caso de estudio, las unidades II y VI de la Cueva Negra, hemos realizado diversos analisis ba- sados en las caracteristicas intrinsecas de la coleccion artefactual y la distribucion espacial que presenta, tanto en proyecciones bidimensionales como tridimensionales, apoyando- nos en la capacidad analitica de los Sistemas de Informacion Geografica y en las posibilida- des que permite la estadistica espacial
Experimental findings are reviewed about cognitive inability of great apes, despite intensive tra... more Experimental findings are reviewed about cognitive inability of great apes, despite intensive training, to use recognition of physical properties of objects to determine how, when, or where to manipulate them as tools for achieving goals. Their cognitive capacity is constrained in situations both of deferred gratification and where available objects were ignored for making a useful composite tool. Apes arguably lack the human cognitive ability to imagine how to blend reality among different potential spheres. This ability requires drawing on memory to envisage alternative future situations, thereby enabling modification of behaviors engrained in procedural memory. Neuroscientific findings are reviewed about short-term working memory, long-term procedural memory, prospective memory and imaginative forward-thinking, with particular reference to manual (“haptic”) behavior. Because wild apes manipulating objects, seeking food, could presage behavioral evolution in early hominins, differences from apes are reviewed. Cognitive implications of stone-tool preparation are considered, drawing attention to aspects of hominin brain evolution and cognitive capacities.
A prerequisite for copying innovative behaviour is the capacity of observers’ brains, regarded as... more A prerequisite for copying innovative behaviour is the capacity of observers’ brains, regarded as hierarchically mechanistic minds, to overcome cognitive ‘surprisal’ (see 2.), by maximising the evidence for their internal models, via ‘active inference’. Unlike modern humans, chimpanzees and other great apes show considerable limitations in their ability, or ‘Zone of Bounded Surprisal’, to overcome cognitive surprisal induced by innovative or unorthodox behaviour which rarely is copied precisely or accurately. Most can copy adequately what is within their phenotypically habitual behavioural repertoire, in which technology plays a scant part. Widespread intra- and intergenerational social transmission of complex technological innovations is not a hall-mark of great-ape taxa. Over three million years ago, precursors of the genus Homo made stone artefacts, and stone-flaking was likely habitual before two million years ago. After this time, early Homo erectus left traces of technological...
The argument is developed that autism spectrum disorder can be interpreted economically in terms ... more The argument is developed that autism spectrum disorder can be interpreted economically in terms of a deficit in polymodal integration which limits awareness by babies and infants of the time-contingency for generating their motor responses to information gleaned from seeing the actions of care-givers or hearing them. This gives rise to difficulties with imitation and mental attribution. In order to grasp the root of the problem we consider “primary intersubjectivity” from the standpoint of the Free Energy Principle as developed by Karl Friston. In terms of this principle and concomitant considerations of variational free energy it can be argued that reduction of predictive errors by both early infants and their care-givers is achievable normally by their reciprocal behavioural exchanges. It is impeded when a deficit in a baby’s polymodal integration leads to a delayed time-contingent response. This protracted sensory integration theory of autism can be subsumed under the acronym PS...
A scientific paradigmatic account suffices to interpret behavioral evolution in early Homo. Cogni... more A scientific paradigmatic account suffices to interpret behavioral evolution in early Homo. Cognitive surprises, favoring anomalous behavioral propensities to sporadic expression, can explain “snakes-and-ladders” appearances and disappearances of Paleolithic skills in the Early and Middle Pleistocene record. The account applies the principle of stationary action, which underpins the free energy principle, to self-organizing systems at an evolutionary timescale. Unusual personal attainments, often explained by invoking progressive ascent of evolutionary phylogenetic “ladders” of cognitive and technical abilities, could be disregarded in a hominin community that failed to imagine or articulate possible advantages for its survivability. Such failure, as well as diverse fortuitous demographic accidents, could erase from collective memory the recollection of exceptional individual conduct which disappeared down a “snake”, so to speak, of the human evolutionary “puzzle”. The puzzle discom...
Early Evolution of Human Memory, 2017
Evidence for tool use and tool-making by great apes in the wild is contrasted against the earlies... more Evidence for tool use and tool-making by great apes in the wild is contrasted against the earliest stone artifacts and signs of their use before 2 million years ago by hominins who had attained a cognitive capacity both to envisage how by manipulating one object they could modify another in order to transform it into a tool, and to remember the manual behavior required to carry out the procedure.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 2022
In this article we review publications relevant to addressing widely reported claims in both the ... more In this article we review publications relevant to addressing widely reported claims in both the academic and popular press that chimpanzees working memory (WM) is comparable to, if not exceeding, that of humans. WM is a complex multidimensional construct with strong parallels in humans to prefrontal cortex and cognitive development. These parallels occur in chimpanzees, but to a lesser degree. We review empirical evidence and conclude that the size of WM in chimpanzees is 2 ± 1 versus Miller's famous 7 ± 2 in humans. Comparable differences occur in experiments on chimpanzees relating to strategic and attentional WM subsystems. Regardless of the domain, chimpanzee WM performance is comparable to that of humans around the age of 4 or 5. Next, we review evidence showing parallels among the evolution of WM capacity in hominins ancestral to Homo sapiens, the phylogenetic evolution of hominins leading to Homo sapiens, and evolution in the complexity of stone tool technology over this time period.
Scientific Reports, 2021
Throughout the Pleistocene, early humans and carnivores frequented caves and large rock-shelters,... more Throughout the Pleistocene, early humans and carnivores frequented caves and large rock-shelters, usually generating bone accumulations. The well-preserved late Early Pleistocene sedimentary sequence at Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar (CNERQ) has provided substantial evidence concerning the behavioural and adaptive skills of early humans in Western Europe, such as butchery practices, lithic technology or tending fire, whilst also bearing witness to the bone-altering activities of carnivores. Recent fieldwork has allowed the re-examination of the spatial and taphonomical nature of the macrofaunal assemblage from the upper layers of Complex 2. These layers are somewhat different from most of the underlying sequence, in showing quite a high representation of cranial and post-cranial bones of large mammals, including several Megaloceroscarthaginiensis antlers. The presence of Crocuta sp. at Cueva Negra represents one of the earliest instances of this genus in Western Eurasia. Id...
Human Evolution, 2016
HUMAN EVOLUTION Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar overlooking the Río Quípar, a Río Segura ... more HUMAN EVOLUTION Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar overlooking the Río Quípar, a Río Segura tributary, is an upland rock-shelter 75 km north of the Mediterranean coast and 110 km west of the Segura river-mouth. It contains undisturbed sediment 5 m deep assigned by magnetostratigraphy to >0.78 Ma (Matuyama mag-2 AA.VV. 2
XXIV Jornadas de Patrimonio Cultural de la Región de Murcia: 9, 16, 23 y 30 de octubre de 2018, 2018, ISBN 978-84-7564-727-2, págs. 461-468, 2018
Quaternary Science Reviews, 2019
Hitherto unpublished 14 C and 230 The 234 U determinations from Carihuela Cave (Granada province,... more Hitherto unpublished 14 C and 230 The 234 U determinations from Carihuela Cave (Granada province, Andalusia, Spain) raise a possibility of late survival here of Neanderthals and their Mousterian technocomplex into an advanced stage of the Late Pleistocene (MIS-3), when anatomically-modern humans with Upper Palaeolithic toolkits were penetrating the region, and when also several carnivore taxa competed for access to the cave. Previous palaeopalynological studies are reinforced by new pollen analyses of samples extracted from coprolites. The palaeoecological and sedimentological records bear comparison with new data from the Padul peat deposits in the Sierra Nevada, and are in line with the view that there was late persistence of the Mousterian in Granada. There is a pressing need for renewed international multidisciplinary research at Carihuela Cave, with up-to-date lithostratigraphical and dating techniques that can expand on results obtained from fieldwork undertaken by a previous generation of researchers. Carihuela Cave continues to hold out great promise for analysing Neanderthal palaeoecology during the Late Pleistocene up to the appearance in southeastern Iberian Peninsula of anatomically-modern Upper Palaeolithic people, particularly with regard to the earlier phases of the Middle Palaeolithic at the cave which await intensive excavation but apparently extend back in time to the last interglacial period.
The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2015
ABSTRACT
Reflexionamos sobre el concepto de palimpsesto arqueologico y proponemos, desde un enfoque empiri... more Reflexionamos sobre el concepto de palimpsesto arqueologico y proponemos, desde un enfoque empirico, la necesidad de diseccionar el registro arqueosedimentario hasta la unidad minima de analisis posible, manifestando la importancia de reconocer la variabi- lidad que muestran los depositos paleoliticos y la exigencia de aplicar diversas analiticas para evaluar de forma correcta los procesos que han actuado en su formacion. En nuestro caso de estudio, las unidades II y VI de la Cueva Negra, hemos realizado diversos analisis ba- sados en las caracteristicas intrinsecas de la coleccion artefactual y la distribucion espacial que presenta, tanto en proyecciones bidimensionales como tridimensionales, apoyando- nos en la capacidad analitica de los Sistemas de Informacion Geografica y en las posibilida- des que permite la estadistica espacial
Experimental findings are reviewed about cognitive inability of great apes, despite intensive tra... more Experimental findings are reviewed about cognitive inability of great apes, despite intensive training, to use recognition of physical properties of objects to determine how, when, or where to manipulate them as tools for achieving goals. Their cognitive capacity is constrained in situations both of deferred gratification and where available objects were ignored for making a useful composite tool. Apes arguably lack the human cognitive ability to imagine how to blend reality among different potential spheres. This ability requires drawing on memory to envisage alternative future situations, thereby enabling modification of behaviors engrained in procedural memory. Neuroscientific findings are reviewed about short-term working memory, long-term procedural memory, prospective memory and imaginative forward-thinking, with particular reference to manual (“haptic”) behavior. Because wild apes manipulating objects, seeking food, could presage behavioral evolution in early hominins, differences from apes are reviewed. Cognitive implications of stone-tool preparation are considered, drawing attention to aspects of hominin brain evolution and cognitive capacities.
A prerequisite for copying innovative behaviour is the capacity of observers’ brains, regarded as... more A prerequisite for copying innovative behaviour is the capacity of observers’ brains, regarded as hierarchically mechanistic minds, to overcome cognitive ‘surprisal’ (see 2.), by maximising the evidence for their internal models, via ‘active inference’. Unlike modern humans, chimpanzees and other great apes show considerable limitations in their ability, or ‘Zone of Bounded Surprisal’, to overcome cognitive surprisal induced by innovative or unorthodox behaviour which rarely is copied precisely or accurately. Most can copy adequately what is within their phenotypically habitual behavioural repertoire, in which technology plays a scant part. Widespread intra- and intergenerational social transmission of complex technological innovations is not a hall-mark of great-ape taxa. Over three million years ago, precursors of the genus Homo made stone artefacts, and stone-flaking was likely habitual before two million years ago. After this time, early Homo erectus left traces of technological...
The argument is developed that autism spectrum disorder can be interpreted economically in terms ... more The argument is developed that autism spectrum disorder can be interpreted economically in terms of a deficit in polymodal integration which limits awareness by babies and infants of the time-contingency for generating their motor responses to information gleaned from seeing the actions of care-givers or hearing them. This gives rise to difficulties with imitation and mental attribution. In order to grasp the root of the problem we consider “primary intersubjectivity” from the standpoint of the Free Energy Principle as developed by Karl Friston. In terms of this principle and concomitant considerations of variational free energy it can be argued that reduction of predictive errors by both early infants and their care-givers is achievable normally by their reciprocal behavioural exchanges. It is impeded when a deficit in a baby’s polymodal integration leads to a delayed time-contingent response. This protracted sensory integration theory of autism can be subsumed under the acronym PS...
A scientific paradigmatic account suffices to interpret behavioral evolution in early Homo. Cogni... more A scientific paradigmatic account suffices to interpret behavioral evolution in early Homo. Cognitive surprises, favoring anomalous behavioral propensities to sporadic expression, can explain “snakes-and-ladders” appearances and disappearances of Paleolithic skills in the Early and Middle Pleistocene record. The account applies the principle of stationary action, which underpins the free energy principle, to self-organizing systems at an evolutionary timescale. Unusual personal attainments, often explained by invoking progressive ascent of evolutionary phylogenetic “ladders” of cognitive and technical abilities, could be disregarded in a hominin community that failed to imagine or articulate possible advantages for its survivability. Such failure, as well as diverse fortuitous demographic accidents, could erase from collective memory the recollection of exceptional individual conduct which disappeared down a “snake”, so to speak, of the human evolutionary “puzzle”. The puzzle discom...
Early Evolution of Human Memory, 2017
Evidence for tool use and tool-making by great apes in the wild is contrasted against the earlies... more Evidence for tool use and tool-making by great apes in the wild is contrasted against the earliest stone artifacts and signs of their use before 2 million years ago by hominins who had attained a cognitive capacity both to envisage how by manipulating one object they could modify another in order to transform it into a tool, and to remember the manual behavior required to carry out the procedure.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 2022
In this article we review publications relevant to addressing widely reported claims in both the ... more In this article we review publications relevant to addressing widely reported claims in both the academic and popular press that chimpanzees working memory (WM) is comparable to, if not exceeding, that of humans. WM is a complex multidimensional construct with strong parallels in humans to prefrontal cortex and cognitive development. These parallels occur in chimpanzees, but to a lesser degree. We review empirical evidence and conclude that the size of WM in chimpanzees is 2 ± 1 versus Miller's famous 7 ± 2 in humans. Comparable differences occur in experiments on chimpanzees relating to strategic and attentional WM subsystems. Regardless of the domain, chimpanzee WM performance is comparable to that of humans around the age of 4 or 5. Next, we review evidence showing parallels among the evolution of WM capacity in hominins ancestral to Homo sapiens, the phylogenetic evolution of hominins leading to Homo sapiens, and evolution in the complexity of stone tool technology over this time period.
Scientific Reports, 2021
Throughout the Pleistocene, early humans and carnivores frequented caves and large rock-shelters,... more Throughout the Pleistocene, early humans and carnivores frequented caves and large rock-shelters, usually generating bone accumulations. The well-preserved late Early Pleistocene sedimentary sequence at Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar (CNERQ) has provided substantial evidence concerning the behavioural and adaptive skills of early humans in Western Europe, such as butchery practices, lithic technology or tending fire, whilst also bearing witness to the bone-altering activities of carnivores. Recent fieldwork has allowed the re-examination of the spatial and taphonomical nature of the macrofaunal assemblage from the upper layers of Complex 2. These layers are somewhat different from most of the underlying sequence, in showing quite a high representation of cranial and post-cranial bones of large mammals, including several Megaloceroscarthaginiensis antlers. The presence of Crocuta sp. at Cueva Negra represents one of the earliest instances of this genus in Western Eurasia. Id...
Human Evolution, 2016
HUMAN EVOLUTION Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar overlooking the Río Quípar, a Río Segura ... more HUMAN EVOLUTION Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar overlooking the Río Quípar, a Río Segura tributary, is an upland rock-shelter 75 km north of the Mediterranean coast and 110 km west of the Segura river-mouth. It contains undisturbed sediment 5 m deep assigned by magnetostratigraphy to >0.78 Ma (Matuyama mag-2 AA.VV. 2