Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-mzsfj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-15T11:46:09.386Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Archaeology retains a central role for studying the behavioral and cognitive evolution of our species and genus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2025

Manuel Will Open the ORCID record for Manuel Will [Opens in a new window]
Manuel Will*
Affiliation:
Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany manuel.will@uni-tuebingen.de https://uni-tuebingen.de/fakultaeten/mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche-fakultaet/fachbereiche/geowissenschaften/arbeitsgruppen/urgeschichte-naturwissenschaftliche-archaeologie/ina/aeltere-urgeschichte-quartaeroekologie/mitarbeiter/professoren-privatdozentinnen-und-privatdozenten/priv-doz-dr-manuel-will/ Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, South Africa
*
*Corresponding author.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 48 , 2025 , e22
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Chamberlin, T. C. (1890). The method of multiple working hypotheses. Science, 15(366), 92–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conard, N. J. (2015). Cultural evolution during the middle and late Pleistocene in Africa and Eurasia. In Henke, W., & Tattersall, I. (Eds.), Handbook of paleoanthropology (pp. 2465–2508). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coolidge, F. L., Haidle, M. N., Lombard, M., & Wynn, T. (2016). Human cognitive evolution, stone age archaeology and bridging theory from a bow hunter's perspective.Google Scholar
Haidle, M. N. (2014). Building a bridge – an archeologist's perspective on the evolution of causal cognition. Frontiers in psychology, 5, 116708.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haidle, M. N. (2016). Lessons from Tasmania – cultural performance versus cultural capacity. In The nature of culture: Based on an interdisciplinary symposium “The Nature of Culture”, Tübingen, Germany (pp. 7–17). Springer Netherlands.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Random House.Google Scholar
Harvati, K., & Reyes-Centeno, H. (2022). Evolution of homo in the middle and late Pleistocene. Journal of Human Evolution, 173, 103279.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hublin, J. J., Ben-Ncer, A., Bailey, S. E., Freidline, S. E., Neubauer, S., Skinner, M. M., … Gunz, P. (2017). New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens. Nature, 546(7657), 289–292.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hussain, S. T., & Will, M. (2021). Materiality, agency and evolution of lithic technology: An integrated perspective for Palaeolithic archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 28(2), 617–670.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Isaac, G. (1977). Squeezing blood from stones: Comments on the importance of Australian data for the promotion of realism in “Stone Age” studies. Notes towards discussion of general issues and of issues raised by contributors. In Wright, R. V. S. (Ed.), Stone tools as cultural markers: Change, evolution and complexity (pp. 5–12). Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Laland, K. N., Odling-Smee, J., & Myles, S. (2010). How culture shaped the human genome: Bringing genetics and the human sciences together. Nature Reviews Genetics, 11(2), 137–148.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Malafouris, L. (2013). How things shape the mind – a theory of material engagement. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McBrearty, S., & Brooks, A. S. (2000). The revolution that wasn't: A new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior. Journal of Human Evolution, 39(5), 453–563.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mellars, P., Stringer, C. (Eds.) (1989). The human revolution: Behavioural and biological perspectives on the origins of modern humans. Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Mirazón Lahr, M. (2016). The shaping of human diversity: Filters, boundaries and transitions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1698), 20150241.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scerri, E. M., & Will, M. (2023). The revolution that still isn't: The origins of behavioral complexity in Homo sapiens. Journal of Human Evolution, 179, 103358.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vidal, C. M., Lane, C. S., Asrat, A., Barfod, D. N., Mark, D. F., Tomlinson, E. L., … Oppenheimer, C. (2022). Age of the oldest known Homo sapiens from eastern Africa. Nature, 601(7894), 579–583.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed