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Archaeology retains a central role for studying the behavioral and cognitive evolution of our species and genus.
Behav Brain Sci
January 2025
Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen,
Our species' behavioral and cognitive evolution constitute a key research topic across many scientific disciplines. Based on ethnographic hunter-gatherer data, Stibbard-Hawkes challenges the common link made between past material culture and cognitive capacities. Despite this adequate criticism, archaeology must retain a central role for studying these issues due to its unique access to relevant empirical evidence in deep time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBeyond the binary: Inferential challenges and solutions in cognitive archaeology.
Behav Brain Sci
January 2025
Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA,
We welcome Stibbard-Hawkes's empirical contributions and discussion of interpretive challenges for archaeology, but question some of his characterizations and conclusions. Moving beyond critique, it is time to develop new research methods that eschew simplistic modern/premodern binaries. We advocate an inductive, probabilistic approach using multiple lines of evidence to infer the causes and consequences of behavioral variability across time and space.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPerishable material choice indicates symbolic and representational capacities.
Behav Brain Sci
January 2025
Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, University Campus, Ano Ilisia, Athens, http://scholar.uoa.gr/etzafestas/.
The absence of symbolic material cultural objects in the archaeological record does not prove absence of symbolic cognition. Sometimes perishable materials are selected for symbolic roles, for practical concerns or to indicate a temporary condition. Also some symbolic functions may predate the use of durable materials.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAll that glitters is not gold: The false-symbol problem in archaeology.
Behav Brain Sci
January 2025
School of Liberal Arts, University of Wollongong, Wollongong,
Stibbard-Hawkes forcefully alerts us to the pitfall of false-negative reasoning in symbolic archaeology. We highlight the twin problem of false-positive reasoning in what we call the "false-symbol problem." False symbols are intuitively special entities that, owing to their non-utilitarian nature, invite symbolic interpretation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe cognitive and evolutionary science of behavioural modernity goes beyond material chronology.
Behav Brain Sci
January 2025
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus), Kelowna, BC,
Stibbard-Hawkes' taphonomic findings are valuable, and his call for caution warranted, but the hazards he raises are being mitigated by a multi-pronged approach; current research on behavioural/cognitive modernity is not based solely on material chronology. Theories synthesize data from archaeology, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, and genetics, and predictions arising from these theories are tested with mathematical and agent-based models.
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