What Can the Lithic Record Tell Us About the Evolution of Hominin Cognition?

Pain, Ross

doi:10.1007/s11245-019-09683-0

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…13 This example, like the Piagetian one preceding it, demonstrates that, in relying on models from the cognitive sciences, minimum-capacity inferences are at risk of inheriting the problem of cultural variation and sample diversity. However, perhaps unlike the Piagetian one, here we have an example of an argument that looks prima facie plausible (Pain 2019) before considering that challenge. In sum: further testing of the cognitive model using culturally diverse samples stands to strengthen or undermine the projection to the past.…”

Section: Case Study 2: Neanderthals and Long-term Working Memorymentioning

confidence: 88%

“…As is further outlined by Pain (2019), Wynn and Coolidge provide good reason to think the models' concepts map nicely onto aspects of the target phenomenon (the Levallois), so the conceptual framework is at least plausible. 11 Nonetheless, smithing may well be more culturally variable than the Kellers and Wynn and Coolidge implicitly assume, potentially restricting the scope of the model.…”

Section: Case Study 2: Neanderthals and Long-term Working Memorymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Another route to optimism utilises causal-association inferences, not discussed in this paper. See Currie andKillin (2019) andPain (2019) for analysis; andKillin and Pain (2021) for the role of multiple independent lines of evidence converging on capacity cognitive archaeological theorising.…”

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confidence: 99%

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How WEIRD is Cognitive Archaeology? Engaging with the Challenge of Cultural Variation and Sample Diversity

Killin

Pain

2022

Rev.Phil.Psych.

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In their landmark 2010 paper, “The weirdest people in the world?”, Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan outlined a serious methodological problem for the psychological and behavioural sciences. Most of the studies produced in the field use people from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies, yet inferences are often drawn to the species as a whole. In drawing such inferences, researchers implicitly assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that WEIRD populations are generally representative of the species. Yet neither of these assumptions is justified. In many psychological and behavioural domains, cultural variation begets cognitive variation, and WEIRD samples are recurrently shown to be outliers. In the years since the article was published, attention has focused on the implications this has for research on extant human populations. Here we extend those implications to the study of ancient H. sapiens, their hominin forebears, and cousin lineages. We assess a range of characteristic arguments and key studies in the cognitive archaeology literature, identifying issues stemming from the problem of sample diversity. We then look at how worrying the problem is, and consider some conditions under which inferences to ancient populations via cognitive models might be provisionally justified.

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Section: Case Study 2: Neanderthals and Long-term Working Memorymentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Case Study 2: Neanderthals and Long-term Working Memorymentioning

confidence: 98%

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How WEIRD is Cognitive Archaeology? Engaging with the Challenge of Cultural Variation and Sample Diversity

Killin

Pain

2022

Rev.Phil.Psych.

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“…In a more radical intervention, Pain argued not only that archaeological data can inform about the evolution of norm psychology but also estimates using stone tool data that a norm gadget first emerged sometime in the Acheulean period (1.7 million years ago to 300,000 years ago) in Homo heidelbergensis and perhaps later variants of Homo erectus . As Pain discussed with great subtlety elsewhere (e.g., Pain, 2021 ), estimates of this kind depend on big assumptions about the kinds of psychological process required to produce stone tools, and some of these assumptions depend, in turn, on theoretical frameworks that are more popular in cognitive archaeology than in cognitive science as a whole (e.g., 4E). These reflections are not cautionary.…”

Section: Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking Norm Psychology in Good Company

Heyes

2023

Perspect Psychol Sci

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“… 1 For some recent discussion in philosophy about the nature of those ‘minimal-capacity inferences’ and ‘ cognitive - transition inferences ’ (see Currie, 2018; Currie & Killin, 2019; Pain, 2019). …”

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confidence: 99%

How does thinking relate to tool making?

Malafouris

2020

Adaptive Behavior

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How the boundaries of the mind should be drawn with respect to action and the material world is a core research question that cognitive archaeology shares with contemporary cognitive sciences. The study of hominin technical thinking, as in the case of stone tool making, is a good way to bring that question to the fore. This article argues that archaeologists who study lithic artefacts and their transformations over the course of human evolution are uniquely well positioned to contribute to the ongoing debate about the marks of the mental. Adopting the material engagement approach, I propose to replace the internalist vision of mentality, that is, the vision of a brain-bound mind that is using the body to execute and externalise preconceived mental plan through the stone, with an ecological-enactive vision of participatory mentality where bodily acts and materials act together to generate rather than merely execute thought processes. I argue that the latter participatory view changes the geography of the cognitive and offers a better description for the continuity of mind and matter that we see in the lithic record.

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What Can the Lithic Record Tell Us About the Evolution of Hominin Cognition?

Cited by 13 publications

References 44 publications

How WEIRD is Cognitive Archaeology? Engaging with the Challenge of Cultural Variation and Sample Diversity

How WEIRD is Cognitive Archaeology? Engaging with the Challenge of Cultural Variation and Sample Diversity

Rethinking Norm Psychology in Good Company

How does thinking relate to tool making?

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