Behavioural modernity, investigative disintegration & Rubicon expectation

Abstract

Abstract‘Behavioural modernity’ isn’t what it used to be. Once conceived as an integrated package of traits demarcated by a clear archaeological signal in a specific time and place, it is now disparate, archaeologically equivocal, and temporally and spatially spread. In this paper we trace behavioural modernity’s empirical and theoretical developments over the last three decades, as surprising discoveries in the material record, as well the reappraisal of old evidence, drove increasingly sophisticated demographic, social and cultural models of behavioural modernity. We argue, however, that some approaches to identifying and categorizing modernity have not kept up with this new picture. This is due to what we term ‘Rubicon expectations’: classificatory and interpretive practices which look for or assume clear demarcations in behavioural and cultural processes. We develop a philosophical account of ‘investigative disintegration’ to capture how our understanding of behavioural modernity has changed, and how Rubicon-based practices have become inadequate. Disintegration, in the form we analyse, occurs when scientists’ conception of a phenomenon shifts sufficiently to reshape an investigation’s epistemic structure. For behavioural modernity, the explanatory weight which once lay on identifying ‘switch-points’ in the innate suite of hominin cognitive capacities, lies now in understanding the social and demographic environments that were capable of sustaining and nourishing more complex material cultures. Finally, we argue that the phenomenon itself has not disintegrated to the point that we are left with no interesting explanandum: for all its mosaic, disparate nature, there are still good reasons for behavioural modernity to retain its central place in investigation of our species' origins.

U-Th dating, taphonomy, and taxonomy of shell middens at Klasies River main site indicate stable and systematic coastal exploitation by MIS 5c-d

“…Ochre-related innovations from the Cape coastal region occur at this time, for example, the possible heating of ochre at Pinnacle Point (Watts, 2010) and abalone shells with remnants of a compound ochre liquid from BBC (Henshilwood et al, 2011). It is the establishment of such innovations on a sub-continental scale and interaction between populations, coastal and inland, that is relevant to understanding cumulative cultural evolution and the human niche (Kissel and Fuentes, 2018;Meneganzin and Currie, 2022). The layers discussed in this paper are older than 100 ka and contain limited evidence of ochre and other artifacts conventionally interpreted as symbolic and innovative.…”

Reconsidering the link between past material culture and cognition in light of contemporary hunter-gatherer material use.

“…First, although terms like 'behaviourally modern' may be used in a purely cultural sense (Sterelny 2011(Sterelny , 2016(Sterelny , 2019, for readers from other disciplines they risk invoking the epistemic baggage -assumptions, associations and conclusions -of earlier models (Klein 2002;Bar-Yosef 2002;Mellars 2005Mellars , 2006, especially as the term 'modern' retains its original meaning elsewhere (Klein 2019). Additionally, though it is useful to consider technological and demographic tipping points (Sterelny 2019;Sterelny and Hiscock 2024) the term 'behavioural modernity' also inherits many attendant definitional difficulties as a threshold, trait-list or concept (Stringer 2002;Henshilwood and Marean 2003;Shea 2011b;Ames et al 2013;Meneganzin and Currie 2022;Scerri and Will 2023). Even the word 'cognition', though usefully defined broadly (Clark 2001), may, to lay readers, be redolent of intrinsic capacities such as working memory (Coolidge et al 2012), or neural connectivity (Wadley 2021).…”

Cognitive Linguistics and Language Evolution

“…Similarly, the evolution of human language and cognition likely also was a process of mosaic evolution instead of a single 'cognitive revolution' (e.g., Berwick & Chomsky 2016) representing a sudden 'crossing of the Rubicon' towards behavioural modernity (cf. Meneganzin & Currie 2022). Neither is it simply captured by a steady and gradual cumulative change towards behavioural modernity (McBrearty & Brooks 2000).…”

“…Instead, the mosaic evolution of behavioural modernity, including language, likely represents a long, protracted, historically contingent process with fits and starts, and interchanging periods of stasis and innovation. It was highly reliant on cultural, contextual, and demographic conditions, which likely took a long time to stabilise and lead to the social environments required to support high-fidelity cumulative cultural evolution of cognitively modern behaviours, including language (Meneganzin & Currie 2022;Scerri & Will 2023).…”