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- Title
A Radical Embodied Approach to Lower Palaeolithic Spear-making.
- Authors
Garofoli, Duilio
- Abstract
It has been argued that spear manufacture at Schöningen around 400 kya required abstract thought and in-depth planning of a kind associated only with fully modern humans. The argument, however, lacks detailed analysis of these cognitive capabilities. In this paper I shall provide such an analysis for the production of spears and show that no qualitatively modern cognitive advancement is required to realize this technology. Situated strategies grounded in re-enacting perceptual simulations are sufficient to obviate the need for any modern form of abstraction in explaining the evidence. This embodied perspective is further radicalized in favor of direct perception, enactivism, and intuitive artifact interaction in order to eliminate any explanatory role for mentalistic plans in both the invention and social transmission of the spear technology. A set of radical embodied cognitive abilities is also sufficient to account for other Acheulean tools, obviating any grounds for qualitative advances in cognition. The enactive integration of stone tools in the perceptual system of Homo heidelbergensis, coupled with an increase of information processing capacity, are quite sufficient quantitative augmentations to the capabilities of earlier hominids. The explanations advanced here are nonetheless consistent with a set of classic and innovative theories in cognitive archaeology.
- Subjects
SPEARS; WEAPONS industry; ABSTRACT thought; COGNITIVE ability; SENSORY perception; DIFFUSION of innovations theory; HEIDELBERG man
- Publication
Journal of Mind & Behavior, 2015, Vol 36, Issue 1/2, p1
- ISSN
0271-0137
- Publication type
Article