Introduction

In trying to isolate reasons for the fact that archaeology has, for so long, ignored the cognitive aspects of material culture studies, one can point to the following - not necessarily in order of appearance or importance:

1. - The once dominant determinist streak in archaeology often saw ‘us humans’ as forever trying to adapt to circumstances beyond our control. This attitude has wilfully ignored the reciprocal nature of the relationship between people and what surrounds them, which is at the core of cognition (see below), and has underrated the impact of long-term human activity on the material and natural world, the degree to which human beings have created their surroundings by direct action or selection.

2. - The predominant evolutionary perspective underwrites a strong theoretical sense of common origins and has led archaeologists to look for, and stress, human universals, both physical and cultural. At first sight, this conflicts with the importance of observed variations, and this apparent conflict has led to a yes-or-no debate on the existence of such universals, for example in material culture. The debate has precluded a more nuanced position, which would entail investigating whether similar processes might underlie very different results.

3. […]

One of the most taxing problems in archaeology is to determine about what and in what manner did prehistoric people think. Is it possible to make the ‘mute stones speak’, and will they tell us how (if not what) our predecessors were thinking? A fundamental challenge in archaeology is to develop the theory, methodology and tools to understand prehistoric cognition. It appears that as processual archaeology revolutionized archaeology in the 1960s and 1970s, cognitive archaeology will revolutionize the 1990s and even the early part of the twenty-first century. Cognitive science is still in its childhood and cognitive archaeology is in its infancy. One direction (already followed by some) has been to develop an ‘interpretationist’, anti-scientific literary approach. This view, allied to the relativist philosophy of ‘post-modernism’, has been associated with Hodder, Shanks and Tilley, and Leone. A second, recent approach has been to use a linguistic framework and develop a hermeneutic, semiotic approach. This direction has been espoused by Gardin and Peebles.

However, some workers have sought a rather different direction in prehistoric cognitive research. It is rooted in the scientific tradition and in an empirical methodology. This scientific view of the ancient mind seeks to draw upon the cognitive, and the mathematical and computer sciences. These researchers are beginning to understand which techniques may appropriately be used on archaeological data and how to implement them efficiently.

We see today a growing interest in cognitive approaches to archaeology, a genuine desire to reach back for the mental templates that underlie human behaviour. While this interest is surely commendable, we should guard against two possible negative outcomes. One such outcome would be the conversion of cognitive archaeology into a fad or a narrow speciality that ignores all other aspects of prehistory. The other would be the delusion that our search for the ancient mind is a recent advance for which our generation is solely responsible.

To avoid the first pitfall, we prefer to speak not of ‘cognitive archaeology’ but rather of ‘holistic archaeology’, a discipline in which cognitive variables would be given equal weight with ecological, economic and sociopolitical variables. As far back as 1976 we called for ‘a framework for analysis which is neither a mindless ecology nor a glorification of mind divorced from the land’ (Flannery and Marcus 1976a: 383).

To avoid the second pitfall, we remind ourselves that many previous generations of archaeologists were just as interested in topics such as ideology, cosmology, iconography and religion (e.g. Caso 1945, 1958; Thompson 1950, 1966, 1970, 1973). Consider, for example, the brilliant writings of Frankfort et al. (1946) on the mind of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia nearly half a century ago.

Exploration of the prehistoric mind has moved to the forefront of archaeological interest. The question is not whether there is a cognitive revolution but how empirical investigations should proceed and what method(s), if any, should guide theory structure. This paper concentrates on the latter: on guidelines for building and assessing theories about prehistoric thinking. The central point is that archaeologists should aim at constructing testable theories of prehistoric cognition. Theories about prehistoric thinking should not simply be interpretations.

Interpretations can yield understanding; that is, they explain phenomena. Since interpretations are not testable however, there are no reliable criteria for deciding between them, or for moving beyond them. Only testable theories can deliver insight and further understanding. Insight is the product of finding a theory correct at a point where it might have failed. Further understanding can be gained when a failed theory is replaced by modified theories or other theories (Lakatos 1970; Bell 1994). In brief, if theories of the prehistoric mind are to be rooted in the artefactual data, and if they are to exploit artefactual data to yield even better theories, then they must be testable.

Interpretation vs. testability

An applied philosopher quickly learns that examples can drive home a methodological point better than an entire manuscript of philosophical argument. I will not avoid argument, but I think it will be helpful to begin by introducing a few examples to illustrate the difference between interpretation and testability.

Archaeologists, when reading this chapter, will appreciate that I share with them a peculiar fondness for fine detail even though the details, in this case, do not pertain to material that is ‘archaeological’ in the usual sense. The central issue raised by these details is, however, a critical one that archaeologists share with all students of the activities of our species: how can one use the perceptible human-produced events and objects of the phenomenal world to make inferences about the non-perceptible abilities, meanings, ideas and intentions in the minds of those who produced and used them? Archaeologists typically must face this problem with severely incomplete data, but the problem is, in essence, the same one faced by all other investigators of human culture. It is, in fact, the same problem faced by all human beings in their daily interactions with their fellows. No one has magic access to the mind of others. We do not even have particularly good access to the cognitive processes of our own minds. All anyone - investigator or native - has are artefacts of cognition. Of course there are artefacts of different kinds - a written text is a different kind of artefact from a stone tool; the sound-waves generated by a conversation with a live human being are different again. But none is an open window to the human mind. The trick is to bring as many kinds of data to bear as possible while keeping in mind the weaknesses imposed by the kinds of data that are not available.

Introduction

One of the tasks facing cognitive archaeology is to contribute towards an understanding of the nature and evolution of the human mind. We need to make explicit reference to past cognition when interpreting the archaeological record and to draw inferences from that data concerning ancient minds. Did, for instance, Homo habilis have language, Homo erectus self-awareness or Neanderthals the capacity for analogical reasoning? While fossil endocasts may inform about brain structure, the character of past cognition must be largely inferred from the archaeological record. And to draw such inferences archaeologists need to engage with, or rather become participants in, the cognitive sciences - just as Bloch (1991) has recently argued for anthropology. This is essential since we cannot pretend to understand the ancient mind without entering debates concerning the character of the modern mind.

In this paper I focus on one of these debates, that concerning whether the mind is a general purpose learning mechanism or composed of a series of relatively independent mental modules - psychological mechanisms dedicated to specific tasks or behavioural domains. My review of this debate suggests that a major feature of human cognitive evolution has been increased accessibility between mental modules resulting in a generalized intelligence, though one remaining within a modular architecture. I consider whether the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic transition may have constituted a phase in human evolution during which there was a significant development from domain specific to generalized intelligence.

Any attempt to encompass the archaeology of mind must inevitably consider the archaeological approach towards religion. For if the archaeology of mind, as envisaged in chapter 1, may be considered in terms of a series of functions of the symbol, of various ways in which symbols may operate, the role of symbols in coping with the unknown and with the supernatural is surely one of the more significant (see Renfrew and Bahn 1991: 358–63). But there is the danger here that we may carry to the inquiry our own culturally-encapsulated, and therefore perhaps stereotyped, view of what religion is. Through our acquaintance, in the first instance, with the great religions of the Book (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), all of which proclaim a unitary deity, we undoubtedly begin from a very special viewpoint. Even some acquaintance with other great, contemporary faiths such as the Buddhist, Hindu, Jain and Zoroastrian, serves in some ways to reinforce the impression of coherently codified (and thus literate), authoritative systems of belief, operating often in an urban context. A preliminary knowledge of the religious systems and the pantheons of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome might, at first, reinforce this view of textbased, well-delineated and formalized structures of belief. Clearly, however, the studies of cultural anthropologists have much to tell us about the religious systems of non-urban societies and of social groups operating on a basis of band or tribal organisation, so that some of these preconceptions can be counteracted and the effects of literacy discounted.

Introduction

How did people perceive the landscapes in which they lived? That is an important question for a cognitive archaeology, but one which our source materials may seem poorly equipped to answer. The geographer considers the human experience of place through written sources: the ‘geographies of the mind’ collected by Lowenthal and Bowden consider the ‘habits of thought that condition what people learn about environment and environmental processes’, but the papers published under that title rely on ‘traces of human attitudes left in the form of diaries, letters, textbooks, scholarly articles, novels, poems and prayers’ (Lowenthal and Bowden 1976: 6; cf. Tuan 1977, Buttimer and Seamon 1980, Cox and Golledge 1981).

Prehistorians confront additional problems. Their most developed techniques for studying the ancient landscape form only part of an approach whose main concern is with human adaptation to resources. There is much to be learned from studies of food production, but they shed no light on the problems of cognition (Barker and Gamble 1985). The same is true of ‘landscape archaeology’. Detailed topographical survey can sometimes show how the landscape was organised, but although it may be possible to recognize changes in its development over time, it is rare for these to be studied alongside the broader changes in perception and practice that they must have entailed.

It is not necessary to stress that for the archaeologist in search of a society's thought processes, documents from the practice of religion or politics are of prime importance. With the durability of its written output on clay tablets, Mesopotamia offers an excellent opportunity to exploit this avenue, but it has not been followed in recent years. There has been a general reluctance on the part of archaeologists to engage with the written evidence, and those who read the texts have been equally reluctant to cross this barrier. With rare exceptions, when one side decides to make a foray into strange territory, it is just that - a foray, almost a commando raid, which takes some booty, wrenches it from its background and then proceeds to exploit it in their home territory according to their own priorities. This is bound to lead to mistakes: each side must take cognizance of the totality of the other side's data base, and understand how the tempting prizes actually belong in their own context. A totem pole, or a crucifix taken from an altar and nailed to a museum wall, cannot be understood without a knowledge of its provenance. Yet this is the way juicy snippets of information from the other side of the historical/archaeological divide have tended to be treated.

This is therefore, in part, a plea for increased crossfrontier awareness, accompanied by the proviso that one must match the ensemble of each body of data, not just selected items. Every tool at our disposal must be brought in.

Introduction

Given that there has been increasing interest among archaeologists in reconstructing what might be called prehistoric ‘mental things’ (e.g. cognition, perception, ideology, symbolism, values, beliefs etc.), and given that it would be interesting to do so, it behoves us, as scientists, to explore whether, or to what degree, it can be done within the framework of the general method of science. Thus, the question I am asking in this chapter is: ‘To what degree are prehistoric thoughts knowable within the context of hypothesis testing?’ Can we actually test ideas which we may have about such things?

I have long maintained that it is not possible to learn about what was in the minds of prehistoric people - these minds are gone, and their mental contents are not recoverable. While we can examine many aspects of what they did, we can understand nothing about what they thought about what they did. But is this really true?

Although I continue to maintain that we cannot actually know what prehistoric people thought, I now think that it is sometimes possible to make plausible inferences about what they must almost certainly have thought, given very strong circumstantial and analogical evidence.

Introduction

There is an apocryphal story about a famous archaeologist who was excavating an Arikara graveyard. Based on previous work, he believed that the Arikara interred the dead in a systematic manner. He suggested that graves were located in a pattern analogous to a checkerboard. Excavating every third square produced nothing for the entire season. The archaeologist was frustrated. During the last day, a crew member suggested they excavate a unit that was not part of this predetermined pattern. Digging one square to the south of their previous excavations they found a grave with a plethora of funeral offerings. The following season, they excavated the same pattern. By lagging the pattern one square to the south they found a grave in each square.

The story illustrates two important aspects of cognitive archaeology. First, the material culture mediates between the archaeologist's cognition and the cognition of the prehistoric native. Second, the material culture reconciles the past to the present.

Originally, the archaeologist believed he knew the organizing principles that the Arikara were using. As the season progressed, he became convinced that he was mistaken. During the second season, he was reassured that he was correct. The archaeological and the native view of spatial organization appeared to correspond although they were separated by cultural differences and five long centuries. Both parties agreed that the inhabitants of the city of the dead had abodes approximately nine metres apart.

In the last years of the seventeenth century, the famous astronomer and antiquary of the Vatican, Francesco Bianchini, published La istoria universale provata conmonumenti e figurata con simboli (Universal history as documented by monuments and illustrated by symbols). In this book, for the first time in the history of archaeology, Bianchini (1747: 10) assumed:

He was, in fact, the first who had reflected on the role of symbols not only as figures of the past, but as a cognitive medium leading to the development of an archaeological theory.

This paper is a reflection on symbolism in Greek society (following the direction proposed by C. Renfrew), an attempt to investigate the way in which symbols were used. I shall be concerned with Greco-Roman society, from the seventh century BC to the third century AD, assuming that during these ten centuries a central body of theory and experience was elaborated about making and using images. I shall consider all symbolic artefacts used in either a cultic or cultural context for the very purpose of representation. This definition can already be read in Plato's work: eidola - is what is common to the various objects that we call by the name of images.

Introduction

Far from being irremediably incapacitated by the inadequacies of the excavated record, an archaeology of the ancient mind is possible, and quite capable of generating new and interesting knowledge about its subject matter. With their in-depth specialization in the recovery, analysis and interpretation of material culture and of technological remains, archaeologists are, in fact, situated in a unique position from which to make original and consequential contributions to the sciences of the human mind. Let me initiate a discussion of this potential with the following proposition: there are non-trivial relations between the material actions that humans undertake, and their minds in action. It is on the reality or the viability of such a proposition that an archaeology of the mind (the way I see it) will hinge. After all, most of our evidence from the past consists of remains of material actions; if these remains, appropriately studied, cannot somehow inform us on the ancient mind, what other means - short of empathy - will do?

My proposition does not stem solely from an attitude of resigned necessity, whereby we must do with what we have. I contend that even if, transported back in time, we could actually observe a Palaeolithic band in vivo, it would be highly informative and rewarding to study their ubiquitous material actions and products in their ‘natural’ setting.