A pervasive question not only in Cognitive Archeology but also in all sciences using the evolutionary framework is this, when and how did the evolution of cognition take place? This has been the crux of the debate that has been raging since the early beginnings of the discipline. School of thoughts on this matter can be divided into two camps. The first school of thought is where environmental factors are the cause of behavioral and biological evolution, which ultimately leads to cognitive evolution while the second school of thought argues that autocatalytic changes were the major cause of cognitive evolution. Considering the position of the two camps, answering the when and how of the evolution of cognition would be akin to the chicken and egg question. Did environmental factors cause the evolution of cognition or did autocatalytic changes began in the mind and that response to environmental factors merely reflect that which began in the mind already. Such issues are … [Read more...]

What mental processes run in the minds of pre-historic stone knappers when they made stone tools? Do they have already have a mental image in mind when the made their stone tools? Is their design deliberate or is the output merely a response to external circumstances and constraints? How do we hypothesize what goes inside the minds of pre-historic knappers through the stone tools that they made? (Picture courtesy of wikipedia) French cognitive Archeologist Nathan Schlanger has categorized the approaches to the interpretation of stone tools more specifically those made using the Levallois technique as belonging to the “Standard” and “reactionary” claim camps. He defines “Standard claims” as an approach that assumes that the Levallois stone knapper had a clear mental image of the product and the procedure to be realized. In other words this approach assumes a mental “pre-determination” on the design of the stone tool on the part of the stone knapper. The “Standard claims” … [Read more...]