Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-6mz5d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-22T20:16:04.893Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The cognitive and evolutionary science of behavioural modernity goes beyond material chronology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2025

Andoni S. E. Sergiou Open the ORCID record for Andoni S. E. Sergiou [Opens in a new window]  and
Liane Gabora Open the ORCID record for Liane Gabora [Opens in a new window]
Andoni S. E. Sergiou*
Affiliation:
Human Behaviour and Cultural Evolution Group, Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter (Penryn Campus), Penryn, Cornwall, UK
Liane Gabora
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus), Kelowna, BC, Canada as1488@exeter.ac.uk liane.gabora@ubc.ca http://andonisergiou.com https://gabora-psych.ok.ubc.ca
*
*Corresponding author.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 48 , 2025 , e16
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

Chrusch, C., & Gabora, L. (2014). A tentative role for FOXP2 in the evolution of dual processing modes and generative abilities. In Bello, P., Guarini, M., McShane, M. & Scassellati, B. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 36th annual meeting of the cognitive science society (pp. 499–504). Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Derex, M., & Boyd, R. (2015). The foundations of the human cultural niche. Nature Communications, 6(1), 8398. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9398CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Derex, M., Perreault, C., & Boyd, R. (2018). Divide and conquer: Intermediate levels of population fragmentation maximize cultural accumulation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 373(1743), 20170062. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0062CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gabora, L., & DiPaola, S. (2012). How did humans become so creative? Proceedings of the international conference on computational creativity (pp. 203–210). Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. ISBN: 978-1-905254668.Google Scholar
Gabora, L., & Kitto, K. (2013). Concept combination and the origins of complex cognition. In Swan, E. (Ed.), Origins of mind: Biosemiotics series (Vol. 8, pp. 361–382). Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabora, L., & Robertson, C. (in press). Nature, nurture, and nous: The role of reflection and reason in the nature-nurture debate. In Pérez-Jara, J. & Ongay, Í. (Eds.), Overcoming the nature versus nurture debate: New and old perspectives on human multidimensionality. Springer Synthese. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/qdesbGoogle Scholar
Gabora, L., & Smith, C. M. (2018). Two cognitive transitions underlying the capacity for cultural evolution. Journal of Anthropological Sciences, 96, 27–52. https://doi.org/10.4436/jass.96008Google ScholarPubMed
Gabora, L, & Smith, C. (2019). Exploring the psychological basis for transitions in the archaeological record. In Henley, T., Kardas, E., & Rossano, M. (Eds.), Handbook of cognitive archaeology: A psychological framework (pp. 218–239). New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Gabora, L., & Steel, M. (2017). Autocatalytic networks in cognition and the origin of culture. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 431, 87–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2017.07.022CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gabora, L., & Steel, M. (2020a). A model of the transition to behavioral and cognitive modernity using reflexively autocatalytic networks. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 17(171), 1720200545. http://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2020.0545CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabora, L., & Steel, M. (2020b). Modeling a cognitive transition at the origin of cultural evolution using autocatalytic networks. Cognitive Science, 44(9), e12878. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12878CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grove, M. (2016). Population density, mobility, and cultural transmission. Journal of Archaeological Science, 74, 75–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2016.09.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J. (2004). Demography and cultural evolution: How adaptive cultural processes can produce maladaptive losses: The Tasmanian case. American Antiquity, 69(2), 197–214. https://doi.org/10.2307/4128416CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152XCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Herrmann, E., Call, J., Hernàndez-Lloreda, M. V., Hare, B., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Humans have evolved specialized skills of social cognition: The cultural intelligence hypothesis. Science, 317(5843), 1360–1366. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1146282CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heyes, C. (2020). Psychological mechanisms forged by cultural evolution. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 29(4), 399–404. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721420917736CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, K., Barton, M., & Hurtado, A. M. (2009). The emergence of human uniqueness: Characters underlying behavioral modernity. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 18(5), 187–200. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.20224CrossRefGoogle 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
Meneganzin, A., & Currie, A. (2022). Behavioural modernity, investigative disintegration & Rubicon expectation. Synthese, 200(1), 47. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03491-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Migliano, A. B., & Vinicius, L. (2022). The origins of human cumulative culture: From the foraging niche to collective intelligence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1843), 20200317. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0317CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Migliano, A. B., Battiston, F., Viguier, S., Page, A. E., Dyble, M., Schlaepfer, R., … Vinicius, L. (2020). Hunter-gatherer multilevel sociality accelerates cumulative cultural evolution. Science Advances, 6(9), eaax5913. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax5913CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Muthukrishna, M., Doebeli, M., Chudek, M., & Henrich, J. (2018). The cultural brain hypothesis: How culture drives brain expansion, sociality, and life history. PLoS Computational Biology, 14(11), e1006504. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006504CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nell, V. (1999). Luria in Uzbekistan: The vicissitudes of cross-cultural neuropsychology. Neuropsychology Review, 9(1), 45–52. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025643004782CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Osiurak, F., Claidière, N., & Federico, G. (2023). Bringing cumulative technological culture beyond copying versus reasoning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27(1), 30–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.09.024CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Powell, A., Shennan, S., & Thomas, M. G. (2009). Late Pleistocene demography and the appearance of modern human behavior. Science, 324(5932), 1298–1301. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1170165CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Singh, M., Acerbi, A., Caldwell, C. A., Danchin, É., Isabel, G., Molleman, L., … Derex, M. (2021). Beyond social learning. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376(1828), 20200050. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0050CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Street, S. E., Navarrete, A. F., Reader, S. M., & Laland, K. N. (2017). Coevolution of cultural intelligence, extended life history, sociality, and brain size in primates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(30), 7908–7914. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1620734114CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed