COLIN RENFREW
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263945
- eISBN:
- 9780191734038
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263945.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter discusses the attempts of pinpointing the origins of humans, i.e. Homo sapiens sapiens. Due to the recent advances in archaeology, specifically in archaeogenetics, it has been determined ...
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This chapter discusses the attempts of pinpointing the origins of humans, i.e. Homo sapiens sapiens. Due to the recent advances in archaeology, specifically in archaeogenetics, it has been determined that the Homo sapiens sapiens originated in Africa 200,000 years ago, and that the speciation phase of human development occurred before that time. The chapter shows that cognitive archaeology would need to analyse more carefully the nature of mind, as well as seek further insight into the processes that underlie the achievements that characterise those different trajectories of development and change.Less
This chapter discusses the attempts of pinpointing the origins of humans, i.e. Homo sapiens sapiens. Due to the recent advances in archaeology, specifically in archaeogenetics, it has been determined that the Homo sapiens sapiens originated in Africa 200,000 years ago, and that the speciation phase of human development occurred before that time. The chapter shows that cognitive archaeology would need to analyse more carefully the nature of mind, as well as seek further insight into the processes that underlie the achievements that characterise those different trajectories of development and change.
Lambros Malafouris
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190204112
- eISBN:
- 9780190204136
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190204112.003.0004
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
This chapter seeks to clarify the meaning that the notion of embodied cognition has in the archaeology of mind. It argues that notions of embodiment often run the risk of trivializing the claim that ...
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This chapter seeks to clarify the meaning that the notion of embodied cognition has in the archaeology of mind. It argues that notions of embodiment often run the risk of trivializing the claim that the body is crucial to mental life, ending up with some version of brain identity theory. To that end, the author differentiates “weak” embodiment from “radical” embodiment. He argues that the material engagement approach subscribes to the latter radical version, according to which cognition is grounded in situated action and is constrained by the specific details of bodily implementation (neural and extraneural) and the nature of local interactions with material things, techniques, and prostheses. The chapter ends with some discussion about the implications of radical embodiment in the archaeology of mind and the study of material culture.Less
This chapter seeks to clarify the meaning that the notion of embodied cognition has in the archaeology of mind. It argues that notions of embodiment often run the risk of trivializing the claim that the body is crucial to mental life, ending up with some version of brain identity theory. To that end, the author differentiates “weak” embodiment from “radical” embodiment. He argues that the material engagement approach subscribes to the latter radical version, according to which cognition is grounded in situated action and is constrained by the specific details of bodily implementation (neural and extraneural) and the nature of local interactions with material things, techniques, and prostheses. The chapter ends with some discussion about the implications of radical embodiment in the archaeology of mind and the study of material culture.
Karenleigh A. Overmann and Frederick L. Coolidge
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190854614
- eISBN:
- 9780190854645
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190854614.003.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
The discipline of cognitive archaeology has now been around for well over four decades. In this introduction to the book the field’s mid-1970s antecedents are presented as a reaction to processual ...
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The discipline of cognitive archaeology has now been around for well over four decades. In this introduction to the book the field’s mid-1970s antecedents are presented as a reaction to processual archaeology. The work of visionary pioneers like archaeologists Thomas Wynn, Glynn Isaac, Colin Renfrew, John Gowlett, and Iain Davidson, psychologist William Noble, evolutionary primatologist William McGrew, biological anthropologist Sue Taylor Parker, and evolutionary neurobiologist Kathleen Gibson is used to discuss how many of the same concerns and challenges are found in contemporary cognitive archaeology: questions of methodologies and theoretical frameworks, commonalities with other species, cultural accumulation and transmission, language evolution, and the turn toward constructs from philosophy of mind. These issues are illustrated in the chapters in this volume, contributed by authors, existing and emerging scholars in cognitive archaeology, who are united by the same goal: understanding the ancient mind from the archaeological record. The introduction also provides an overview of the book.Less
The discipline of cognitive archaeology has now been around for well over four decades. In this introduction to the book the field’s mid-1970s antecedents are presented as a reaction to processual archaeology. The work of visionary pioneers like archaeologists Thomas Wynn, Glynn Isaac, Colin Renfrew, John Gowlett, and Iain Davidson, psychologist William Noble, evolutionary primatologist William McGrew, biological anthropologist Sue Taylor Parker, and evolutionary neurobiologist Kathleen Gibson is used to discuss how many of the same concerns and challenges are found in contemporary cognitive archaeology: questions of methodologies and theoretical frameworks, commonalities with other species, cultural accumulation and transmission, language evolution, and the turn toward constructs from philosophy of mind. These issues are illustrated in the chapters in this volume, contributed by authors, existing and emerging scholars in cognitive archaeology, who are united by the same goal: understanding the ancient mind from the archaeological record. The introduction also provides an overview of the book.
Duilio Garofoli
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262035552
- eISBN:
- 9780262337120
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262035552.003.0016
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Evidence of feather extraction from scavenging birds by late Neanderthal populations, supposedly for ornamental reasons, has been recently used to bolster the case for Neanderthal symbolism and ...
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Evidence of feather extraction from scavenging birds by late Neanderthal populations, supposedly for ornamental reasons, has been recently used to bolster the case for Neanderthal symbolism and cognitive equivalence with modern humans. This argument resonates with the idea that the production and long-term maintenance of body ornaments necessarily require a cluster of abilities defined here as the material symbolism package. This implies the construction of abstract meanings, which are then mentally imposed to artifacts and socially shared through full-blown mindreading, assisted by a meta-representational language. However, a set of radical enactive abilities, mainly direct social perception and situated concepts, is sufficient to explain the emergence of ornamental feathers without necessarily involving the material symbolism package. The embodied social structure created by body ornaments, augmented through behavioral-contextual narratives, suffices to explain even the long-term maintenance of this practice without mentalism. Costly neurocentric assumptions conceiving the material symbolism package as a homuncular adaptation are eschewed by applying a non-symbolic interpretation of feathers as cognitive scaffolds. It will be concluded that the presence of body adornment traditions in the Neanderthal archaeological record does not warrant the cognitive equivalence with modern humans, for it does not constrain a meta-representational level of meaning.Less
Evidence of feather extraction from scavenging birds by late Neanderthal populations, supposedly for ornamental reasons, has been recently used to bolster the case for Neanderthal symbolism and cognitive equivalence with modern humans. This argument resonates with the idea that the production and long-term maintenance of body ornaments necessarily require a cluster of abilities defined here as the material symbolism package. This implies the construction of abstract meanings, which are then mentally imposed to artifacts and socially shared through full-blown mindreading, assisted by a meta-representational language. However, a set of radical enactive abilities, mainly direct social perception and situated concepts, is sufficient to explain the emergence of ornamental feathers without necessarily involving the material symbolism package. The embodied social structure created by body ornaments, augmented through behavioral-contextual narratives, suffices to explain even the long-term maintenance of this practice without mentalism. Costly neurocentric assumptions conceiving the material symbolism package as a homuncular adaptation are eschewed by applying a non-symbolic interpretation of feathers as cognitive scaffolds. It will be concluded that the presence of body adornment traditions in the Neanderthal archaeological record does not warrant the cognitive equivalence with modern humans, for it does not constrain a meta-representational level of meaning.
Karenleigh A. Overmann and Frederick L. Coolidge (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190854614
- eISBN:
- 9780190854645
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190854614.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
This anthology celebrates 40 years of an archaeology of mind, the investigation of how the modern human mind emerged, as discerned through material artifacts such as the stone tools used throughout ...
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This anthology celebrates 40 years of an archaeology of mind, the investigation of how the modern human mind emerged, as discerned through material artifacts such as the stone tools used throughout the Paleolithic and the hunting technologies and numbers found in the Neolithic. The contributions by established and emerging scholars cover a wide variety of topics in cognitive archaeology, including the evolutionary bases for cognition, how stone tools may reflect the brains and minds of their makers, when and how stone tools move from the practical to the aesthetic, and the social implications of archaeological artifacts and their relationships to attention, language, working memory, materiality, and numbers. The volume concludes with some thoughts by archaeologist Thomas Wynn, one of the field’s most distinguished pioneers, on how cognitive archaeology contributes to our understanding of human cognition and mainstream cognitive science.Less
This anthology celebrates 40 years of an archaeology of mind, the investigation of how the modern human mind emerged, as discerned through material artifacts such as the stone tools used throughout the Paleolithic and the hunting technologies and numbers found in the Neolithic. The contributions by established and emerging scholars cover a wide variety of topics in cognitive archaeology, including the evolutionary bases for cognition, how stone tools may reflect the brains and minds of their makers, when and how stone tools move from the practical to the aesthetic, and the social implications of archaeological artifacts and their relationships to attention, language, working memory, materiality, and numbers. The volume concludes with some thoughts by archaeologist Thomas Wynn, one of the field’s most distinguished pioneers, on how cognitive archaeology contributes to our understanding of human cognition and mainstream cognitive science.
Iain Davidson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190854614
- eISBN:
- 9780190854645
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190854614.003.0005
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
Tom Wynn’s original work that looked at the evolution of stone tool technology using Piaget’s developmental sequence was the beginning of productive research into the evolution of hominin and human ...
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Tom Wynn’s original work that looked at the evolution of stone tool technology using Piaget’s developmental sequence was the beginning of productive research into the evolution of hominin and human cognition. In this chapter, I evaluate those beginnings and discusses recent attempts to provide a more satisfactory understanding of changes in stone tool technologies, including work by Philip Barnard and William McGrew, subsequent work by Tom Wynn, and my own work with various collaborators. It suggests that some of the previous understandings of cognitive evolution were shaped by the fact that approaches to stone tools were largely determined in the nineteenth century. I propose some new ways of looking at stone tools and the sort of story that allows for more productive models of the evolution of human cognition.Less
Tom Wynn’s original work that looked at the evolution of stone tool technology using Piaget’s developmental sequence was the beginning of productive research into the evolution of hominin and human cognition. In this chapter, I evaluate those beginnings and discusses recent attempts to provide a more satisfactory understanding of changes in stone tool technologies, including work by Philip Barnard and William McGrew, subsequent work by Tom Wynn, and my own work with various collaborators. It suggests that some of the previous understandings of cognitive evolution were shaped by the fact that approaches to stone tools were largely determined in the nineteenth century. I propose some new ways of looking at stone tools and the sort of story that allows for more productive models of the evolution of human cognition.
P. R. S. Moorey
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262801
- eISBN:
- 9780191734526
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262801.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
This chapter discusses terracottas and Old Testament study and looks at two paradigm shifts in recent scholarship in the origins of Israelite religion and in cognitive archaeology. It next turns to ...
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This chapter discusses terracottas and Old Testament study and looks at two paradigm shifts in recent scholarship in the origins of Israelite religion and in cognitive archaeology. It next turns to examine some conceptual hazards with regard to toys, magic and fertility. Finaly clay and cuneiform texts in terms of inscribed terracottas in ancient Mesopotamia are discussed and the value of broad and extended perspectives are given. Finally the chapter looks at contrasting terracotta repertories in the areas of Canaan, Israel and Judah.Less
This chapter discusses terracottas and Old Testament study and looks at two paradigm shifts in recent scholarship in the origins of Israelite religion and in cognitive archaeology. It next turns to examine some conceptual hazards with regard to toys, magic and fertility. Finaly clay and cuneiform texts in terms of inscribed terracottas in ancient Mesopotamia are discussed and the value of broad and extended perspectives are given. Finally the chapter looks at contrasting terracotta repertories in the areas of Canaan, Israel and Judah.
Thomas Wynn
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190854614
- eISBN:
- 9780190854645
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190854614.003.0024
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
Contributions to evolutionary cognitive archaeology (ECA) now present a wide range of commitments to cognitive science itself. It is still common to find quasi-cognitive approaches that rely on terms ...
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Contributions to evolutionary cognitive archaeology (ECA) now present a wide range of commitments to cognitive science itself. It is still common to find quasi-cognitive approaches that rely on terms with little to no grounding in formal cognitive science, but which also have practical utility, especially when discussing technical cognition. Many ECA practitioners now employ terms and concepts grounded in cognitive science, most often cognitive neuroscience, though most of these remain post hoc applications. A more powerful approach begins with a cognitive ability of interest, identifies representative activities that would leave an archaeological signature, and traces their development in archaeological record. Such an approach not only enhances the picture presented by the standard narrative of paleoanthropology but also puts ECA in a position to make positive contributions to cognitive science itself.Less
Contributions to evolutionary cognitive archaeology (ECA) now present a wide range of commitments to cognitive science itself. It is still common to find quasi-cognitive approaches that rely on terms with little to no grounding in formal cognitive science, but which also have practical utility, especially when discussing technical cognition. Many ECA practitioners now employ terms and concepts grounded in cognitive science, most often cognitive neuroscience, though most of these remain post hoc applications. A more powerful approach begins with a cognitive ability of interest, identifies representative activities that would leave an archaeological signature, and traces their development in archaeological record. Such an approach not only enhances the picture presented by the standard narrative of paleoanthropology but also puts ECA in a position to make positive contributions to cognitive science itself.
Terence Cave
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780192858122
- eISBN:
- 9780191949012
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780192858122.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Literary artefacts—the stories people tell, the songs they sing, the scenes they enact—are neither a by-product nor a side-issue in human culture. They provide a model of everything that cognition ...
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Literary artefacts—the stories people tell, the songs they sing, the scenes they enact—are neither a by-product nor a side-issue in human culture. They provide a model of everything that cognition does. They refuse to separate thought from emotion, bodily responses from ethical reflection, perception from imagination, logic from desire. Above all, they demonstrate the essential fluidity and mobility of human cognition, its adaptive inventiveness. If we are astonished by the art of Chauvet or Lascaux as an early model of human cognition, then we should be continually astonished by what literature is and does as it reaches beyond itself to reimagine the world. This book argues that literary artefacts are quasi-autonomous living entities, fashioned to animate captured environments, embodied people and other creatures, ways of being and living that remain virtual. They own a freely delegated agency that allows them to speak to listeners and readers present and distant, present and future, adapting themselves and their meanings to whatever cognitive environment they encounter. Such an approach offers a way of linking a close attention to the specific properties of literary artefacts with the insights of cognitive anthropology and archaeology, and thus of satisfying the conditions for a properly interdisciplinary understanding of literature. It aims both to defend literary study against utilitarian and reductive arguments of all kinds and to argue that literary artefacts may give us new insights into how the mind (and its indispensable substratum, the brain) functions in the human ecology.Less
Literary artefacts—the stories people tell, the songs they sing, the scenes they enact—are neither a by-product nor a side-issue in human culture. They provide a model of everything that cognition does. They refuse to separate thought from emotion, bodily responses from ethical reflection, perception from imagination, logic from desire. Above all, they demonstrate the essential fluidity and mobility of human cognition, its adaptive inventiveness. If we are astonished by the art of Chauvet or Lascaux as an early model of human cognition, then we should be continually astonished by what literature is and does as it reaches beyond itself to reimagine the world. This book argues that literary artefacts are quasi-autonomous living entities, fashioned to animate captured environments, embodied people and other creatures, ways of being and living that remain virtual. They own a freely delegated agency that allows them to speak to listeners and readers present and distant, present and future, adapting themselves and their meanings to whatever cognitive environment they encounter. Such an approach offers a way of linking a close attention to the specific properties of literary artefacts with the insights of cognitive anthropology and archaeology, and thus of satisfying the conditions for a properly interdisciplinary understanding of literature. It aims both to defend literary study against utilitarian and reductive arguments of all kinds and to argue that literary artefacts may give us new insights into how the mind (and its indispensable substratum, the brain) functions in the human ecology.
Dietrich Stout
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190854614
- eISBN:
- 9780190854645
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190854614.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
While stone tools provide only the narrowest keyhole view of the lives of our ancestors, new theory and methods that explicitly focus on the interaction of organisms and environments over time—niche ...
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While stone tools provide only the narrowest keyhole view of the lives of our ancestors, new theory and methods that explicitly focus on the interaction of organisms and environments over time—niche construction, the evolution of development, phenotypic accommodation, and gene–culture co-evolution—provide opportunities for squeezing “mind” from enigmatic stones. Tool-making, like language and theory of mind, is a culturally transmitted skill acquired through extended practice. It is also a key component of a human cultural niche that supports our unique adaptive strategy of large brains, cooperative breeding, and extended development. As discussed in this chapter, by deploying methods from the neural and behavioral sciences to better understand this archaeologically visible behavior, we can hope to more broadly illuminate the evolution of the human mind, brain, and culture.Less
While stone tools provide only the narrowest keyhole view of the lives of our ancestors, new theory and methods that explicitly focus on the interaction of organisms and environments over time—niche construction, the evolution of development, phenotypic accommodation, and gene–culture co-evolution—provide opportunities for squeezing “mind” from enigmatic stones. Tool-making, like language and theory of mind, is a culturally transmitted skill acquired through extended practice. It is also a key component of a human cultural niche that supports our unique adaptive strategy of large brains, cooperative breeding, and extended development. As discussed in this chapter, by deploying methods from the neural and behavioral sciences to better understand this archaeologically visible behavior, we can hope to more broadly illuminate the evolution of the human mind, brain, and culture.
Dennis Harding
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198817734
- eISBN:
- 9780191887949
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198817734.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Non-Classical
‘Every generation re-writes history in its own way’. Re-writing History applies Collingwood’s dictum to a series of topics and themes, some of which have been central to prehistoric and protohistoric ...
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‘Every generation re-writes history in its own way’. Re-writing History applies Collingwood’s dictum to a series of topics and themes, some of which have been central to prehistoric and protohistoric archaeology for the past century or more, while some have been triggered by more recent changes in technology or social attitudes. Some issues are highly controversial, like the proposals for the Stonehenge World Heritage sites. Others challenge long-held popular myths, like the deconstruction of the Celts and by extension the Picts. Yet some traditional tenets of scholarship have gone unchallenged for too long, like the classical definition of civilization itself. But why should it matter? Surely it is in the order of things that each generation rejects received wisdom and adopts ideas that are radical or might offend previous generations? Is this not simply symptomatic of healthy and vibrant debate? Or are there grounds for believing that current changes are of a more disquieting character, denying the basic assumptions of rational argument and freedom of enquiry and expression that have been the foundation of western scholarship since the eighteenth century Enlightenment? Re-writing History addresses contemporary concerns about information and its interpretation, including issues of misinformation and airbrushing of politically-incorrect history. Its subject matter is the archaeology of prehistoric and early historic Britain, and the changes witnessed over two centuries and more in the interpretation of the archaeological heritage by changes in the prevailing political and social as well as intellectual climate. Far from being topics of concern only to academics in ivory towers, the way in which seemingly innocuous issues such as cultural diffusion or social reconstruction in the remote past are studied and presented reflects important shifts in contemporary thinking that challenge long-accepted conventions of free speech and debate.Less
‘Every generation re-writes history in its own way’. Re-writing History applies Collingwood’s dictum to a series of topics and themes, some of which have been central to prehistoric and protohistoric archaeology for the past century or more, while some have been triggered by more recent changes in technology or social attitudes. Some issues are highly controversial, like the proposals for the Stonehenge World Heritage sites. Others challenge long-held popular myths, like the deconstruction of the Celts and by extension the Picts. Yet some traditional tenets of scholarship have gone unchallenged for too long, like the classical definition of civilization itself. But why should it matter? Surely it is in the order of things that each generation rejects received wisdom and adopts ideas that are radical or might offend previous generations? Is this not simply symptomatic of healthy and vibrant debate? Or are there grounds for believing that current changes are of a more disquieting character, denying the basic assumptions of rational argument and freedom of enquiry and expression that have been the foundation of western scholarship since the eighteenth century Enlightenment? Re-writing History addresses contemporary concerns about information and its interpretation, including issues of misinformation and airbrushing of politically-incorrect history. Its subject matter is the archaeology of prehistoric and early historic Britain, and the changes witnessed over two centuries and more in the interpretation of the archaeological heritage by changes in the prevailing political and social as well as intellectual climate. Far from being topics of concern only to academics in ivory towers, the way in which seemingly innocuous issues such as cultural diffusion or social reconstruction in the remote past are studied and presented reflects important shifts in contemporary thinking that challenge long-accepted conventions of free speech and debate.
Terence Cave
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780192858122
- eISBN:
- 9780191949012
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780192858122.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The Introduction provides an initial explanation of the phrases ‘live artefacts’ and ‘cognitive environment’ in the book’s title, connecting these with the assumption of a fundamental continuity ...
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The Introduction provides an initial explanation of the phrases ‘live artefacts’ and ‘cognitive environment’ in the book’s title, connecting these with the assumption of a fundamental continuity between nature and culture, and emphasizing the affiliation between this assumption and the work of cognitive archaeologists and anthropologists. Drawing on the biological concept of autopoiesis, it sketches the hypothesis that literary utterances are life-forms, and suggests that human forms of expression, with all their remarkable plasticity, self-engendering proliferation, and powers of endurance, speak to ways of belonging to our native environment. The relation of the book’s arguments to the broader field of cognitive studies is then clarified, defining ‘cognition’ as embodied and enactive. The methodology adopted is described, assigning priority to imaginative utterances (literature in the broadest sense) as the primary object of knowledge. The Introduction is followed by a chapter-by-chapter Reader’s Guide to the book as a whole.Less
The Introduction provides an initial explanation of the phrases ‘live artefacts’ and ‘cognitive environment’ in the book’s title, connecting these with the assumption of a fundamental continuity between nature and culture, and emphasizing the affiliation between this assumption and the work of cognitive archaeologists and anthropologists. Drawing on the biological concept of autopoiesis, it sketches the hypothesis that literary utterances are life-forms, and suggests that human forms of expression, with all their remarkable plasticity, self-engendering proliferation, and powers of endurance, speak to ways of belonging to our native environment. The relation of the book’s arguments to the broader field of cognitive studies is then clarified, defining ‘cognition’ as embodied and enactive. The methodology adopted is described, assigning priority to imaginative utterances (literature in the broadest sense) as the primary object of knowledge. The Introduction is followed by a chapter-by-chapter Reader’s Guide to the book as a whole.