ISBN : 9780190854614
Cognitive archaeology is a relatively new interdisciplinary science that uses cognitive and psychological models to explain archeological artifacts like stone tools, figurines, and art. Squeezing Minds From Stones is a collection of essays from early pioneers in the field, like archaeologists Thomas Wynn and Iain Davidson, and evolutionary primatologist William McGrew, to 'up and coming' newcomers like Shelby Putt, Ceri Shipton, Mark Moore, James Cole, Natalie Uomini, and Lana Ruck. Their essays address a wide variety of cognitive archaeology topics, including the value of experimental archaeology, primate archaeology, the intent of ancient tool makers, and how they may have lived and thought.
Introduction: Cognitive Archaeology at the Crossroads
Karenleigh A. Overmann and Frederick L. Coolidge
1. A Simian View of the Oldowan: Reconstructing the Evolutionary Origins of Human Technology
William C. McGrew, Tiago Falotico, Michael D. Gumert, and Eduardo B. Ottoni
2. Homo artifex: An Extended Evolutionary Perspective on the Origins of the Human Mind, Brain, and Culture
Dietrich Stout
3. Looking at Rocks Together: Tool Production, Joint Attention, and Offline Cognition
Rex Welshon
4. Evolution of Cognitive Archaeology through Evolving Cognitive Systems: A Chapter for Tom Wynn
Iain Davidson
5. Sticks, Stones, and the Origins of Sapience
Philip J. Barnard
6. The Origin of Cumulative Culture: Not a Single-Trait Event But Multifactorial Processes
Miriam Noel Haidle
7. Hominin Evolution and Stone Tool Scavenging and Reuse in the Lower Paleolithic
Adam Brumm, Matt Pope, Mathieu Leroyer, and Kate Emery
8. Flake-Making and the Cognitive Rubicon: Insights from Stone-Knapping Experiments
Mark W. Moore
9. Stone Tools and Spatial Cognition
Derek Hodgson
10. Testing Models of Handedness in Stone Tools
Natalie Uomini and Lana Ruck
11. Early Convergent Cultural Evolution: Acheulean Giant Core Methods of Africa
Gonen Sharon
12. Cultural Transmission from the Last Common Ancestor to the Levallois Reducers: What Can We Infer?
Stephen J. Lycett
13. The Handaxe Aesthetic
Thomas Wynn and Tony Berlant
14. The Stories Stones Tell of Language and Its Evolution
Shelby S. Putt
15. In Three Minds: Extending Cognitive Archaeology with the Social Brain
Cory Stade and Clive Gamble
16. The Evolution of Social Transmission in the Acheulean
Ceri Shipton
17. Knapping in the Dark: Stone Tools and a Theory of Mind
James Cole
18. A Critical Analysis of the Evidence for Sexual Division of Tasks in the European Upper Paleolithic
Sophie A. de Beaune
19. The Enhanced Working Memory Model: Its Origin and Development
Frederick L. Coolidge
20. Materiality and the Prehistory of Number
Karenleigh A. Overmann
21. Ensnaring the Mind: Cognitive Implications of Setting Snares and Traps
Lyn Wadley
22. On the Minds of Bow Hunters
Marlize Lombard
23. Epilogue: Situating the Cognitive in Cognitive Archaeology
Thomas Wynn
Index