summerhayes 2011 review of archaeology

In: Becoming Eloquent: Advances in the emergence of language, human cognition, and modern cultures., d'Errico F. and Hombert J.-M. (eds), John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam: 13-68, 2009

In this paper we recall the arguments put forward in an attempt to link language origins and specific elements of the fossil record (pigment use, burial practices, personal ornaments, production of depictions and carving, musical traditions, various anatomical features), and summarise the scenarios proposed by palaeo-anthropologists and archaeologists to account for the emergence of modern behavioral traits. This review challenges the idea of a strict link between biological and behavioural change and suggests that modern cognition and language are results of a gradual, complex and non-linear process to whose advancement different human populations and possibly a number of fossil human species have contributed.

is well-known in rock-art circles as the author of a series of articles drawing on ethnographic material and shamanism (notably connected with the San rock art of southern Africa) to gain new insights into the Palaeolithic cave art of western Europe. Some 15 years ago, with Thomas Dowson, he proposed that Palaeolithic art owed its inspiration at least in part to trance experiences (altered states of consciousness) associated with shamanistic practices. Since that article appeared, the shamanistic hypothesis has both been widely adopted and developed in the study of different rock-art | traditions, and has become the subject of lively and sometimes . . heated controversy.

The Genesis of Creativity and the Origin of the Human Mind, 2015

In this paper we recall the arguments put forward in an attempt to link language origins and specific elements of the fossil record (pigment use, burial practices, personal ornatnenis, production of depictions and carvings, ~nusical traditions, various anato~nical fcaru~.es), and si~mrnarise the scenarios proposed by palaeoa~itl~royologists and archeeologists to account for the emergence of modern behavioral traits, 1 1 i s review challer~ges the idea of a strict link between biological and behavioural change and si~ggests that modern cognition and lalrgilage are results of a gradual, complex and non-linear process to whose advat~celnerit different human populations and possibly a riurnber oFfossil human species have contributed.

The emergence of the human mind is a topic that has been of considerable interest to the disciplines of archaeology, cognitive archaeology and neuroscience in recent years. Most research in this regard has tended to focus on what material culture associated with early Homo sapiens might reflect in terms of the timing and nature of early cognitive capacities and ‘behavioural modernity’. In recent years, however, both the concept of ‘behavioural modernity’ and its passive treatment of material culture have become highly criticised. Yet, until now, there has remained some confusion as to where to turn in its absence. Recently, Lambros Malafouris outlined the theoretical frameworks of Material Engagement Theory and Metaplasticity as a means to understand the active role of material culture in the constitution of the human mind. However, despite Malafouris' application of these theoretical frameworks to a series of case studies previously associated with human cognitive ‘modernity’ (including tool manufacture, early body ornamentation, and ritual art), the Late Pleistocene archaeological community has done little to engage with this work. In this paper I outline and then apply MET and Metaplasticity to two further case studies often considered pertinent to the development of human cognition in the Late Pleistocene – namely, long-distance resource sourcing and/or exchange and the development of composite technologies. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate that there is somewhere to turn in the wake of the statement ‘we have never been behaviourally modern’.

The transition from the Middle Paleolithic to the Upper Paleolithic is considered one of the major revolutions in the prehistory of humankind. Explanations of the observable archaeological phenomena in Eurasia, or the lack of such evidence in other regions, include biological arguments (the role of Cro-Magnons and the demise of the Neanderthals), as well as cultural-technological, and environmental arguments. The paper discusses issues of terminological ambiguities, chronological and geographical aspects of change, the emergence of what is viewed as the arch-types of modern forager societies, and the hotly debated and loaded issue of modern behavior. Finally, the various causes for the Upper Paleolithic revolution are enumerated, from the biological through the technocultural that relies on the analogy with the Neolithic revolution.

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2013

The unusual nature of the Neanderthal archaeological record has attracted the attention of archaeologists for the past 150 years. On the one hand, the technical skill apparent in their lithic technology, the practice of symbolic cultural behaviours (such as burials), and their successful survival in harsh environmental conditions for more than 200,000 years demonstrate the adaptive success and underlying humanity of the Neanderthal populations. On the other hand, the apparent lack of abundant and repeated use of symbolic material culture has resulted in a number of researchers arguing that these populations were largely incapable of symbolism - a conclusion with significant implications for social organisation. This paper reviews ideas regarding the use of ‘place’ or ‘landscape’ by Neanderthals and argues that the identified differences between the archaeological records of Neanderthals and late Pleistocene Modern Humans is not so much the result of significant variance in cognitive capacities, but rather the use of contrasting approaches to interaction with the physical landscape. ‘Landscape socialisation’ is a Modern Human universal, but what if Neanderthals did not participate in this kind of landscape interaction? Would this difference in behaviour result in the apparently contradictory archaeological record which has been created? The ideas presented in this paper are drawn together as a hypothesis to be developed and tested.