This volume provides a landscape narrative of early hominin evolution, linking conventional material and geographic aspects of the early archaeological record with wider and more elusive social, cognitive and symbolic landscapes. It seeks to move beyond a limiting notion of early hominin culture and behaviour as dictated solely by the environment to present the early hominin world as the outcome of a dynamic dialogue between the physical environment and its perception and habitation by active agents. This international group of contributors presents theoretically informed yet empirically based perspectives on hominin and human landscapes.

This volume provides a narrative of early hominin evolution, linking material aspects of the early archaeological record with social, cognitive and symbolic landscapes.

This volume provides a narrative of early hominin evolution, linking material aspects of the early archaeological record with social, cognitive and symbolic landscapes.

"This volume provides a landscape narrative of early hominin evolution, linking conventional material and geographic aspects of the early archaeological record with wider and more elusive social, cognitive and symbolic landscapes. It seeks to move beyond a limiting notion of early hominin culture and behavior as dictated solely by the environment to present the early hominin world as the outcome of a dynamic dialogue between the physical environment and its perception and habitation by active agents. This international group of contributors presents theoretically informed yet empirically based perspectives on hominin and human landscapes"--

This volume provides a narrative of early hominin evolution, linking material aspects of the early archaeological record with social, cognitive and symbolic landscapes.

This work examines the cognitive capacity of great apes in order to better understand early man and the importance of memory in the evolutionary process. It synthesizes research from comparative cognition, neuroscience, primatology as well as lithic archaeology, reviewing findings on the cognitive ability of great apes to recognize the physical properties of an object and then determine the most effective way in which to manipulate it as a tool to achieve a specific goal. The authors argue that apes (Hominoidea) lack the human cognitive ability of imagining how to blend reality, which requires drawing on memory in order to envisage alternative future situations, and thereby modifying behavior determined by procedural memory. This book reviews neuroscientific findings on short-term working memory, long-term procedural memory, prospective memory, and imaginative forward thinking in relation to manual behavior. Since the manipulation of objects by Hominoidea in the wild (particularly in order to obtain food) is regarded as underlying the evolution of behavior in early Hominids, contrasts are highlighted between the former and the latter, especially the cognitive implications of ancient stone-tool preparation.

This study blends together ethical philosophy, neurocognitive-evolutionary studies, and literary theory to explore how imaginative discourse addresses a distinctively human deep sociality, and by doing so helps shape cultural and literary history. Deep sociality, arising from an improbable evolutionary history, both entwines and leaves non-reconciled what is felt to be significant for us and what ethical sense seems to call us to acknowledge as significant, independent of ourselves. Ethical Sense and Literary Significance connects literary and cultural history without reducing the literary to a mere expression of something else. It argues that affective differences between non-egocentric and egocentric registers of significance are integral to the bioculturally evolved deep sociality that verbal art addresses—often in unsettling and socially critical ways. Much imaginative discourse, in early societies as well as recent ones, brings ethical sense and literary significance together in ways that reveal their intricate but non-harmonized internal entwinement. Drawing on contemporary scholarship in the humanities and sciences, Donald R. Wehrs explores the implications of interdisciplinary approaches to topics central to a wide range of fields beyond literary studies, including neuroscience, anthropology, phenomenological philosophy, comparative history, and social psychology.

Fourteen papers are presented here in honour of John Gowlett. John has a wide range of research interests primarily focused on the human genus Homo and is a world leader in understanding the cognitive and behavioural preconditions necessary for the emergence of complex behaviours such as language and art.

The remains that archaeologists uncover reveal ancient minds at work as much as ancient hands, and for decades many have sought a better way of understanding those minds. This understanding is at the forefront of cognitive archaeology, a discipline that believes that a greater application of psychological theory to archaeology will further our understanding of the evolution of the human mind. Bringing together a diverse range of experts including archaeologists, psychologists, anthropologists, biologists, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, historians, and philosophers, in one comprehensive volume, this accessible and illuminating book is an important resource for students and researchers exploring how the application of cognitive archaeology can significantly and meaningfully deepen their knowledge of early and ancient humans. This seminal volume opens the field of cognitive archaeology to scholars across the behavioral sciences.

Cognitive archaeology is a relatively new interdisciplinary science that uses cognitive and psychological models to explain archeological artifacts like stone tools, figurines, and art. Squeezing Minds From Stones is a collection of essays from early pioneers in the field, like archaeologists Thomas Wynn and Iain Davidson, and evolutionary primatologist William McGrew, to 'up and coming' newcomers like Shelby Putt, Ceri Shipton, Mark Moore, James Cole, Natalie Uomini, and Lana Ruck. Their essays address a wide variety of cognitive archaeology topics, including the value of experimental archaeology, primate archaeology, the intent of ancient tool makers, and how they may have lived and thought.