The Evolution of Early Symbolic Behavior

Introduction

Understanding the unique evolutionary trajectory taken by the human species is impossible without appreciation of our special capacities for symbolic cognition and behavior. But how did these capacities evolve during the late Middle Palaeolithic?

Recent Developments

Within only the last couple of decades, early milestones in human symbolic behavior have been continuously revised as new excavations across the globe challenge previous long-held assumptions. However, at the same time, we have made little progress in our understanding of past symbolic behavior and the mechanisms by which it evolved.

The Nature of Symbols

As tools of the mind, symbols are constituted by the intangible cognitive processes they evoke in pragmatic use contexts, which are inaccessible to the standard methods of archaeology or genetics.

Project Overview

With eSYMb, I will establish a novel integrative framework for the systematic investigation of early symbolic evolution directly frontloading records from archaeology in experimental investigations and computational modeling based on state-of-the-art methods from the cognitive sciences.

Research Approach

Starting from the assumption that symbolic artifacts evolve adaptively over time to better fulfill their intended functions, I will investigate these structural changes and their cognitive implications to inform inferences about their past use.

Methodology

The framework will thus establish transparent, data-driven methods and criteria to test for the first time:

1. Concrete hypotheses about early human symbolic behavior
2. From 6+ archaeological sites from the late Middle and early Upper Palaeolithic (~150,000 - 12,000 years ago)
3. Based on measures critical to symbolic cognition and behavior.

Conclusion

In summary, the objective of eSYMb is to bring systematic scientific rigor to the investigation and interpretation of early human symbolic behavior.