On the Soundness of Inferring Modern Language from Symbolic Behaviour

Botha, Rudolf P.

doi:10.1017/s0959774310000454

Cited by 39 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Material evidence is used to reconstruct the behavioral patterns underlying the crafting and use of artifacts (Haidle 2009(Haidle , 2010Coolidge and Wynn 2004;Barnard 2010;Wragg Sykes 2015). Subsequently, such behavioral analyses are mapped against the cognitive capabilities that are required to explain their existence, and the resulting theories evaluated at the best explanation for how they fit the archaeological record (Botha 2010;Abramiuk 2012, pp. 30-33;Garofoli and Haidle 2014;Garofoli 2017b;Wynn 2000;.…”

Section: The Evolution Of Human Social Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The biocultural emergence of mindreading: integrating cognitive archaeology and human development

Fenici

Garofoli

2017

J Cult Cogn Sci

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According to the thesis of natural mindreading (NMRT), mindreading-i.e., the capacity to attribute mental states to predict and explain behavior-is an intrinsic component of the human biological endowment, thus being innately specified by natural selection within particular neurocognitive structures. In this article, we challenge the NMRT as a phylogenetic and ontogenetic account of the development of the socio-cognitive capacities of our species. In detail, we argue that basic capacities of social cognition (e.g., the traces of early systems of bodily ornamentation within the archeological record, and infants' selective attention at others' beliefs in spontaneous-response false belief tasks) do not involve meta-representational mindreading but are better explained by appealing to situated embodied capacities acquired in social interaction. While we acknowledge that more flexible capacities of social cognition (e.g., those implied by the use of political emblems in industrialized societies, or by 4-year-olds' success in elicitedresponse false belief tasks) involve genuine mindreading, we argue that this ability is elicited and scaffolded by linguistic communication. We conclude that mindreading has emerged as the outcome of a highly derivative long-term constructivist process of biocultural becoming that led to a relatively recent restructuring of the human mind in multiple worldly locations at different times. In particular, we conjecture that humans gradually converged on establishing linguistic practices allowing the understanding of others' actions in terms of mental reasons. These practices were bequeathed to further generations, and continue nowadays to scaffold the acquisition of mindreading in early childhood.

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Section: The Evolution Of Human Social Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The biocultural emergence of mindreading: integrating cognitive archaeology and human development

Fenici

Garofoli

2017

J Cult Cogn Sci

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“…The need for a more precise conceptual correspondence between cognition and archaeological data has been argued by Botha (2010) and this paper may be interpreted as an effort in answering the question: what do some of the "modern" (that is, sapiens-like) behaviour indexes mean in terms of cognition? This is, therefore, a conceptual analysis, and the factual proposal that it contains about the origin of language may be modified by new data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

On the Acheulean origin of mind and language

Sá-Saraiva

2012

THS

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“…Some of the earliest forms of body adornment are shell beads that date back to ∼75 Kya (Henshilwood et al, 2004) and ∼82 Kya (Bouzouggar et al, 2007), possibly even 100–130 Kya (Vanhaeren et al, 2006) or earlier (Bednarik, 2015). However, some researchers argue that this “modern behaviour” was probably established earlier than is reflected in the archaeological record, and is simply not visible due to taphonomic processes (Bowdler & Mellars, 1990; Noble & Davidson, 1996; Botha, 2008; Botha, 2010). Teasing apart pre-depositional effects in mollusc remains, however, can be made more difficult because predators can produce modifications which are similar to those produced by humans through their ability to make holes in shells.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A systematic review of animal predation creating pierced shells: implications for the archaeological record of the Old World

Kubicka¹,

Rosin

Tryjanowski

et al. 2017

PeerJ

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BackgroundThe shells of molluscs survive well in many sedimentary contexts and yield information about the diet of prehistoric humans. They also yield evidence of symbolic behaviours through their use as beads for body adornments. Researchers often analyse the location of perforations in shells to make judgements about their use as symbolic objects (e.g., beads), the assumption being that holes attributable to deliberate human behaviour are more likely to exhibit low variability in their anatomical locations, while holes attributable to natural processes yield more random perforations. However, there are non-anthropogenic factors that can cause perforations in shells and these may not be random. The aim of the study is compare the variation in holes in shells from archaeological sites from the Old World with the variation of holes in shells pierced by mollusc predators.MethodsThree hundred and sixteen scientific papers were retrieved from online databases by using keywords, (e.g., ‘shell beads’; ‘pierced shells’; ‘drilling predators’); 79 of these publications enabled us to conduct a systematic review to qualitatively assess the location of the holes in the shells described in the published articles. In turn, 54 publications were used to assess the location of the holes in the shells made by non-human predators.ResultsAlmost all archaeological sites described shells with holes in a variety of anatomical locations. High variation of hole-placement was found within the same species from the same site, as well as among sites. These results contrast with research on predatory molluscs, which tend to be more specific in where they attacked their prey. Gastropod and bivalve predators choose similar hole locations to humans.DiscussionBased on figures in the analysed articles, variation in hole-location on pierced shells from archaeological sites was similar to variation in the placement of holes created by non-human animals. Importantly, we found that some predators choose similar hole locations to humans. We discuss these findings and identify factors researchers might want to consider when interpreting shells recovered from archaeological contexts.

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On the Soundness of Inferring Modern Language from Symbolic Behaviour

Cited by 39 publications

References 21 publications

The biocultural emergence of mindreading: integrating cognitive archaeology and human development

The biocultural emergence of mindreading: integrating cognitive archaeology and human development

On the Acheulean origin of mind and language

A systematic review of animal predation creating pierced shells: implications for the archaeological record of the Old World

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