Transmission of Tool-making through Verbal and Non-verbal Communication: Preliminary Experiments in Levallois Flake Production.

Ohnuma, Katsuhiko; Aoki, Kenichi; Akazawa, And Takeru

doi:10.1537/ase.105.159

Cited by 77 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…In contrast, proficient Oldowan stone knapping needs weeks of practice and most stone tool types take years to master [85][86][87]. While the basic gestures and concepts of stone tool production can be learned in an hour with active teaching ( [42], N. Uomini pers. obs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a broad spectrum of social learning strategies across human cultures and across animal species, ranging from unsupervised observation to interactive teaching [36][37][38][39][40][41]. Prehistoric hominins could have used any of these learning strategies [28,[42][43][44]. Before the emergence of teaching, hominin children would have engaged in social learning through observation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of Handedness and Viewpoint on the Imitation of Origami-Making

Uomini

Lawson

2017

Symmetry

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Abstract:The evolutionary origins of the human bias for 85% right-handedness are obscure. The Apprenticeship Complexity Theory states that the increasing difficulty of acquiring stone tool-making and other manual skills in the Pleistocene favoured learners whose hand preference matched that of their teachers. Furthermore, learning from a viewing position opposite, rather than beside, the demonstrator might be harder because it requires more mental transformation. We varied handedness and viewpoint in a bimanual learning task. Thirty-two participants reproduced folding asymmetric origami figures as demonstrated by a videotaped teacher in four conditions (left-handed teacher opposite the learner, left-handed beside, right-handed opposite, or right-handed beside). Learning performance was measured by time to complete each figure, number of video pauses and rewinds, and similarity of copies to the target shape. There was no effect of handedness or viewpoint on imitation learning. However, participants preferred to produce figures with the same asymmetry as demonstrated, indicating they imitate the teacher's hand preference. We speculate that learning by imitation involves internalising motor representations and that, to facilitate learning by imitation, many motor actions can be flexibly executed using the demonstrated hand configuration. We conclude that matching hand preferences evolved due to socially learning moderately complex bimanual skills.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Handedness and Viewpoint on the Imitation of Origami-Making

Uomini

Lawson

2017

Symmetry

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“…These clusters of knapping choices, represented by artifact measurements and characterizations, have been termed flintknapping domains (Tostevin 2000b(Tostevin , 2003a and serve to structure the analysis of learned flintknapping behaviors since these are the physical acts used by an observer to learn a knapping method, with or without spoken language instruction (Ohnuma et al 1997). The behaviors within the flake-by-flake domains are either consciously chosen or unconsciously determined through the knapper's body performance at the same instant as the blow of the percussor for each flake in the assemblage.…”

Section: Abandoning the Typological Approach To The Characterization mentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

2011

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There are more areas of overlap as well as distinction between the Reduction Sequence and Chaîne Opératoire methods of archaeological analysis than the current debate recognizes. While methodological differences have been acknowledged, high-level theory differs to a greater degree than is currently appreciated, partly due to the social practice of archaeology in different contexts. This paper compares and evaluates examples of reduction sequence and chaîne opératoire research to demonstrate how high-level theory goals impact middle-range theory and even low-level theory practices (i.e., how data are constructed and published). The paper then utilizes the distinction between an emic decision hierarchy and an etic production hierarchy to elucidate how the practitioners of both methods can more successfully integrate their approaches. An alternative to both methods is offered to demonstrate how common epistemological problems can be resolved. As an example of this alternative approach, the paper compares blank production behaviors and tool kit morphologies among Levantine Ahmarian, as well as among Levantine Aurignacian assemblages, from Kebara Cave, Israel. This case study demonstrates that the two Ahmarian assemblages are more different, rather than more similar to each other, in comparison to the Levantine Aurignacian assemblages. This suggests that a typological approach to these assemblages conceals significant behavioral data.

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“…And inevitably, specialists disagree as to what kinds of material indication can be viewed as satisfactory proxies for symbolic cognition. It has periodically been suggested that complex stone working technologies require language (and by extension symbolic abilities) for transmission down the generations; but experiments by Japanese researchers (Ohnuma et al 1997) suggest that this is not the case. Indeed, there is a strong argument to be made that no aspect of Paleolithic technology can by itself be taken as prima facie evidence of symbolic capacities; for intuitive, nondeclarative, forms of intelligence can evidently accomplish formidable feats (Tattersall 2009).…”

Section: Symbolism and The Archeological Recordmentioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming Modern Homo sapiens

Tattersall

2009

Evo Edu Outreach

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Human beings are unusual in many ways but perhaps most strikingly in their unique symbolic form of processing information about the world around them. Although based on a long and essential evolutionary history, the modern human cognitive style is not predicted by that history: it is emergent rather than the product of an incremental process of refinement. Homo sapiens is physically very distinctive and is clearly the result of a significant developmental reorganization with ramifications throughout the skeleton and presumably beyond. It is reasonable to suppose that the neural underpinnings of symbolic thought were acquired in this reorganization. However, the fossil and archeological records indicate that the first anatomically recognizable members of the species substantially predated its first members who behaved in a demonstrably symbolic manner. Thus, while the biological potential for symbolic thinking most likely arose in the morphogenetic event that gave rise to H. sapiens as a distinctive anatomical entity, this new capacity was evidently exaptive, in the sense that it had to await its "discovery" and release through a cultural stimulus. Plausibly, this stimulus was the invention of language. One expression of symbolic reasoning is the adoption of technological change in response to environmental challenges, contrasting with earlier responses that typically involved using existing technologies in new ways. As climates changed at the end of the last Ice Age, the new technophile proclivity was expressed in a shift toward agriculture and sedentary lifestyles: a shift that precipitated a fundamentally new (and potentially self-destructive) relationship with nature. Thus, both of what are arguably the two most radical (and certainly the most fateful) evolutionary innovations in the history of life (symbolic thinking and sedentary lifestyles) were both very recent occurrences, well within the (so far rather short) tenure of H. sapiens.

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Transmission of Tool-making through Verbal and Non-verbal Communication: Preliminary Experiments in Levallois Flake Production.

Cited by 77 publications

References 7 publications

Effects of Handedness and Viewpoint on the Imitation of Origami-Making

Effects of Handedness and Viewpoint on the Imitation of Origami-Making

Untitled

Becoming Modern Homo sapiens

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