ANTH 106 - Chapter 9

Cognitive Archaeology

the study of past human thought, perception, and symbolic behavior through material remains. Example: inferring that early humans could pan ahead because they made tools with multi-step manufacturing sequences, the way tools were planned and made tells us about memory, focus, and abstract thought.

Acheulean hand ax

A teardrop-shaped, bifacially flaked stone tool made by Homo erectus and related hominins from about 1.7 million to 200,000 years ago. 

Venus figurines

Small Upper Paleolithic statuettes of women, often with exaggerated breasts, abdomen, or hips. Example: The Venus of Willendorf, a roughly 11 cm limestone figurine from Austria dated to about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago. 

The use of an object, image, or action to stand for an idea or meaning beyond its literal form. Example: Red ochre pieces engraved with geometric patterns at Blombos Cave, South Africa, possibly representing shared cultural meaning.

Symbolism

The study of images and visual motifs, and the conventions that give them meaning within a culture. Example: The recurring “Venus” or “Tlaloc” imagery of Mesoamerican art, where specific features such as goggle eyes identify a rain deity.

Iconography

Archaeology of cults

The study of material evidence for religious ritual and belief, such as shrines, offerings, and ceremonial objects. Example: Göbekli Tepe’s carved T-shaped pillars arranged in enclosures, interpreted as a ritual or ceremonial site.

A culture’s understanding of what kinds of beings exist and what their nature is. Example: Many Indigenous Amazonian communities treat animals and spirits as persons, unlike a Western view separating humans from nature.

Ontology

The quality of being seen as alive, sentient, or capable of agency, whether or not the thing is biologically alive. Example: Some Native American traditions regard certain stones or sacred objects as living beings that must be fed or treated respectfully.

Animacy

What are symbols and how do they relate to cognitive archaeology?

Things that stand for meanings beyond their physical form, and their presence in the archaeological record is evidence of abstract thought, shared meaning, and language-like cognition.

To communicate (language, writing), mark identity (clothing, body ornaments), express belief (religious objects), record information (notation, counting), and signal status or group membership (flags, regalia).

What are some of the ways in which humans use symbols?

By analyzing tool-making sequences, art and symbolic objects, brain size and structure (endocasts), and comparing hominin behavior to living primates and modern humans, often through experimental archaeology and neuroimaging.

How do archaeologists and anthropologists investigate the cognitive abilities of our hominin ancestors?

Through counting systems and tally marks, calendars and astronomical alignments, standardized units of length and weight, and mapping or orienting buildings and monuments.

What are some of the ways in which past people measured their world?

By looking for patterned evidence such as shrines and sacred spaces, ritual deposits and offerings, burials with grave goods, special iconography, and objects with no obvious practical use

How do archaeologists recognize religion or cult in the archaeological record? .

People treat them with respect and reciprocity, such as making offerings, observing taboos, restricting hunting or access, and caring for them as relatives or persons rather than resources.

How might a perception of sentient animals and places affect people’s behavior toward those non-human beings or landscapes?

An interpretive framework of the world that, it is argued, exists in the human mind and affects actions and decisions as well as knowledge structures. Example: French prehistorians Claudine Karlin and Michèle Julien analyzed the sequence of events necessary to produce blades in the Magdalenian period of the French Upper Paleolithic.

Cognitive map

the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge

epistemology

Edmund Gettier challenged the JTB model by showing cases where beliefs can be both true and justified by luck, yet still fail to count as genuine knowledge. Example:

The Gettier Problem