Anthropological contributions to cognitive science (original) (raw)

2017, Proceedings of the 39th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 26–29 July 2017, London, England

What's archaeology got to do with it? Archaeology contributes to cognitive science in two key areas. First, in understanding human cognitive evolution, archaeology furnishes critical data on the timing and context of developments (Wynn, 2002). This approach assumes minds make tools: increasing complexity in material forms is an effect of, and thus signals, cognitive change related to neurological developments like encephalization. Second, archaeology provides unique insight into the ways materiality functions within the extended, enacted mind. This inverted approach—tools make minds (Malafouris, 2013)—examines how material forms interact with body and brain to create meaning and experience and potentialize behavioral and psychological change. In both contributions, archaeology negotiates temporalities, centuries to millennia and longer, that can be challenging for psychological theories and methods to assimilate.

On tools making minds: An archaeological perspective on human cognitive evolution

Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2019

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 material forms that may cause such change, and the spans of time required for neurofunctional reorganization. We also offer three hypotheses for investigating co-influence and change in cognition and material culture. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 785793.

Squeezing minds from stones: Cognitive archaeology and the evolution of the human mind

Oxford University Press, 2019

Cognitive archaeology is a relatively new interdisciplinary science that uses cognitive and psychological models to explain archeological artifacts like stone tools, figurines, and art. Squeezing Minds from Stones is a collection of essays from early pioneers in the field, like archaeologists Thomas Wynn and Iain Davidson, and evolutionary primatologist William McGrew, to 'up and coming' newcomers like Shelby Putt, Ceri Shipton, Mark Moore, James Cole, Natalie Uomini, and Lana Ruck. Their essays address a wide variety of cognitive archaeology topics, including the value of experimental archaeology, primate archaeology, the intent of ancient tool makers, and how they may have lived and thought.

An Introduction to Cognitive Archaeology

Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2016

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 transitions in hominin cognitive evolution—the appearance of Homo erectus about 2 million years ago, and the recent enhancement of working-memory capacity within the past 200,000 years. Although intentionally created stone tools date to about 3.3 million years ago, Homo erectus produced a bifacial, symmetrical handaxe whose design then persisted for nearly the next 2 million years. An enhancement in working-memory capacity may have been responsible for the relative explosion of culture within the past 50,000 years, which included personal ornamentation, highly ritualized burials, bow-and-arrow technology, depictive cave art, and artistic figurines.

Cognitive Archaeology and the Cognitive Sciences

2014

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 Wynn. The first describes the transition from arboreal to terrestrial life in later Homo and the possible cognitive repercussions of terrestrial sleep. The second stage proposes that a genetic event may have enhanced working memory in Homo sapiens (specifically in terms of Baddeley’s multicomponent working memory model). The present chapter also reviews the archaeological and neurological bases for modern thinking, and the latter arguments are primarily grounded in the significance of the morphometric rescaling of the parietal lobes, which appears to have distinguished Homo sapiens from Neandertals.

The Archaeology of Mind: It's Not What You Think

Narratives of human evolution place considerable emphasis upon human cognitive development resulting from the evolution of brain architecture and witnessed by the production of ‘symbolic’ material culture. Recent work has modified the narrative to the extent that cognitive development is treated as the product of humanity’s ability to download certain aspects of brain functionality, such as the storage of information, into external media. This article questions the centrality given to the history of brain architecture as determinate of human cognition by rejecting the widespread assumption that cognition trades in representations, either stored internally in the brain or downloaded externally into cultural media. The alternative, offered here, is that human cognitive development was constructed through the development of joint attention made possible by the anatomical development of hominins and that this sustained a shared empathy between social agents in their practical understanding of the qualities of materiality.

The explanatory limits of cognitive archaeology

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2002

This article has two goals. The first is to make a case for the relevance of archaeological contributions to studies of the evolution of cognition. The second is to provide an example of one such contribution, a reconstruction of aspects of early hominid spatial cognition based on an ...

Loading...

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

Archaeology

In Henke W. & I. Tattersall (eds.), Handbook of palaeoanthropology Vol.1 Principles, methods, and approaches. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 261-287., 2007