Reconsidering the link between past material culture and cognition in light of contemporary hunter-gatherer material use.
Duncan N. E. Stibbard-Hawkes
Abstract:Many have interpreted symbolic material culture in the deep past as evidencing the origins sophisticated, modern cognition. Scholars from across the behavioural and cognitive sciences, including linguists, psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists, primatologists, archaeologists and paleoanthropologists have used such artefacts to assess the capacities of extinct human species, and to set benchmarks, milestones or otherwise chart the course of human cognitive evolution. To better calibrate our expectations,… Show more
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