Archaic body ornaments without theory of mind. A radical embodied approach
to the origin of human social cognition
1,2
Duilio Garofoli
1. Institut für Naturwissenschaftliche Archäologie, Abt. Paläoanthropologie. Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Rümelinstr. 23, 72070 Tübingen, Germany;
2. Research Center “The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans” of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities,
Senckenberg Research Institute, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt/M, Germany.
Introduction
Cognitive costs
Evidence of perforated shell beads has been reported in
several Middle Stone Age archaeological sites in Africa.
Such artifacts have been considered to be early instances of body ornaments. They are associated with early
modern human populations (starting from ca 150.000
years before present).
a
b
a) Representing abstract concepts
No need of abstract concept of COOLNESS. No mindreading requirement (see Hutto (2011) for further explanations about direct social perception).
COOLNESS
The “How?”
Neurocentrism
Definition
Theory
It is thus difficult to represent COOLNESS without sophisticated linguistic abilities.
Symbolic
meaning
Adaptive problems
Adapted brain
b) Mindreading
Shared concept
Innate social
cognitive abilities
Fig. 1: a) Example of presumed Neanderthal body ornaments (Henshilwood et al. 2004). b) Early
modern skull from Qazfeh, ca 90 kya (Schrenk & Müller 2005).
Similar body ornaments recently ascribed to late Neanderthal populations in Europe (50.000 years BP).
a
b
Protagonist´s
mind
COOLNESS
Target´s
mind
COOLNESS
Material Engagement
Shared symbolic relation
t
Thinking through
Protagonist´s
mind
Target´s
mind
COOLNESS
Fig. 2: a) Example of presumed Neanderthal body ornaments (Zilhao et al. 2010). b) Classic Neanderthal skull from Shanidar, ca 60 kya (Schrenk & Müller 2005).
Fundamental questions
1) What cognitive properties are necessary and sufficient to produce early body ornaments?
2) How do humans come to acquire such abilities?
Thinking about thinking
Massive cognitive costs motivated the idea that early
modern humans and late Neanderthals shared the
same social cognitive abilities with modern populations. The roots of modern cognition were dated back to
the Middle Pleistocene (500 kya).
A radical embodied alternative
The “What?”
The argument for cognitive equivalence
Figure 3 illustrates the initiation phase of a body adornment practice, namely the process through which an
agent decides to turn an object of interest into a body
ornament.
COOLNESS
ng
adi
dre
Min
According to a radical embodied (REC) proposal, such
mentalistic requirements are not necessary to produce
these body ornaments.
n
c
ea
lr
Direct perception
ot
Em
tio
na
io
Socia
l affor
dance
Fig. 4: a radical embodied alternative, reconstructed from Garofoli (forthcoming).
Fig. 3: the logic of cognitive equivalence, inferred from Henshilwood & Dubreuil
(2011).
The protagonist understands the meaning of an object
in a mentalistic way, that is, by “reading” the content of
the target´s mind.
Thinking
about
Thinking with
The shiny shell acts like a talesman for the target´s emotional reactions. Such emotional reactions, channeled
towards the object, can be directly perceived and they
can ground the meaning of the ornament directly “in
the world”.
The agent understands this meaning by looking at the
social affordance offered by the shell.
She is thus motivated to initiate the practice of body
adornment by turning the shell into an ornament.
Duilio Garofoli, contact: [email protected], [email protected]
web: http://www.neuroantropologia.wordpress.com
(Metacogni on)
t+ 1
The engagement with artifacts enacts new cognitive
abilities, brings forth new meanings and eventually
drives the selection of adaptive neurobiological substrates (Malafouris 2013; Garofoli 2013).
Conclusions
- Early body ornaments do not prove the existence of
cognitive capabilities that are equivalent to those of
modern populations. In fact, the REC abilities reported
here might be compatible with a non-modern mental
architecture.
- Material engagement with non-symbolic material
scaffolds is necessary to acquire the cognitive abilities
that allow to process full-symbolism. In contrast, neurocentric stances come with high metaphysical costs.
Acknowledgments
The research presented here was funded by the Role Of Culture in the Early Expansions of Humans (ROCEEH). The author whishes to thank Miriam Haidle for assistance in preparing this document. Special thanks also to Cristina Niturad for
posing as a model for the illustrations.
References
Garofoli, D. (forthcoming). Do early body ornaments prove cognitive modernity? A critical analysis from situated cognition. Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences.
Garofoli, D (2013). Critique of How things shape the mind. A theory of Material Engagement, by Lambros Malafouris. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 34 (3-4): 299-310.
Henshilwood, C. S. & Dubreuil, B. (2011). The Still Bay and Howiesons Poort, 77–59 ka. Symbolic material culture and the evolution of the mind during the African Middle Stone Age. Current Anthropology, 52(3), 361–400.
Henshilwood, C., d’Errico,F., Vanhaeren, M., van Niekerk, K & Jacobs, Z. (2004): Middle Stone Age Shell Beads
from South Africa. Science, 304(5669): 404.
Hutto, D.D. (2011). Elementary mind minding, enactivist-style. In A. Seemann (Ed.), Joint attention: New developments in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience (pp. 307–341). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Malafouris, L. (2013). How things shape the mind: a theory of material engagement. Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Cambridge (MA).
Schrenk, F. & Müller, S. (2005). The Neanderthals. Routledge, London and New York.
Zilhão J., Angelucci D.E., Badal-García E. et al. (2010). Symbolic use of marine shells and mineral pigments by
Iberian Neandertals. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 107 (3): 1023-8.