Cognitive Archaeology and Human Evolution

✍ Scribed by Sophie A. de Beaune, Frederick L. Coolidge, Thomas Wynn (Editors)

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 193
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book presents new directions in the study of cognitive archaeology. Seeking to understand the conditions that led to the development of a variety of cognitive processes during evolution, it uses evidence from empirical studies and offers theoretical speculations about the evolution of modern thinking as well. The volume draws from the fields of archaeology and neuropsychology, which traditionally have shared little in the way of theories and methods, even though both disciplines provide crucial pieces to the puzzle of the emergence and evolution of human cognition. The twelve essays, written by an international team of scholars, represent an eclectic array of interests, methods, and theories about evolutionary cognitive archaeology. Collectively, they consider whether the processes in the development of human cognition simply made a better use of anatomical and cerebral structures already in place at the beginning of hominization. They also consider the possibility of an active role of hominoids in their own development and query the impact of hominoid activity in the emergence of new cognitive abilities.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Cover
......Page 1
Title Page
......Page 3
Copyright
......Page 4
Contents
......Page 5
List of Illustrations......Page 7
Contributors......Page 9
1. The emergence of cognitive abilities: The contribution of neuropsychology to archaeology - Sophie A. de Beaune
......Page 14
2. Technical invention in the Palaeolithic: What if the explanation comes from the cognitive and neuropsychological sciences? - Sophie A. de Beaune
......Page 16
3. Innovation and creativity: A neuropsychological perspective - Andreas Kyriacou
......Page 28
4. The archaeology of consciousness - Matt J. Rossano
......Page 38
5. Prehistoric handedness and prehistoric language - Natalie T. Uomini
......Page 49
6. How to think a simple spear - Miriam Noël Haidle
......Page 68
7. Long-term memory and Middle Pleistocene “Mysterians” - Michael J. Walker
......Page 85
8. The quest for a common semantics: Observations on definitional criteria of cognitive processes in prehistory - Carolina Maestro and Carmine Collina
......Page 95
9. Cognition and the emergence of language: A contribution from lithic technology - Jacques Pelegrin
......Page 105
10. Language and the origin of symbolic thought - Ian Tattersall
......Page 119
11. Implications of a strict standard for recognizing modern cognition in prehistory - Thomas Wynn and Frederick L. Coolidge
......Page 127
12. Imagination and recursion: Issues in the emergence of language - Eric Reuland
......Page 138
13. Whither evolutionary cognitive archaeology? Afterword - Thomas Wynn
......Page 154
References
......Page 159
Index
......Page 184
Back Cover
......Page 193