Ultimately, all archaeology is about explaining specific human (hominin) behaviours. In this academic year’s seminar we will look at archaeology’s intersection with recent interdisciplinary research in comparative cognitive and behavioural neuroscience (and adjacent fields such as animal behaviour studies and linguistics). We will analyze, and criticize, usually implicit assumptions concerning human nature, in particular the culturalist “tabula rasa” (blank slate) view.
There will be seven three-hour meetings devoted to the following (partly overlapping) subjects:
modularity and/vs epigenetic plasticity (S. Mithen)
embodied cognition (E. Thompson) and qualia (J. Searle)
“bounded”/evolved rationality and emotions, including altruism, mindreading and joint attention (M. Tomasello),
evolution of language (D. Bickerton, T. Fitch) and the “release from proximity” (C. Gamble)
narrative and myth in evolutionary perspective (K. Dautenhahn).
Case studies will include explaining handaxe variability and the Beowulf as a source in early medieval archaeology (and cf. the casuistry in the two special sections of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal mentioned below).
All this against the background of (comparative) behavioural socioecology of prehistoric hominin and human foragers and cultivators, in particular the gene-culture coevolution approach (Boyd, Richerson, Henrich, McEnreath). Put more simply: we will connect cognition and emotion to sociality and culture.
Key words: nature/nurture, human universals, anthropocentrism, anthropomorphism, human specialty, “Hobbesian” evolution, Tinbergen’s “four whys”.
Learning objectives
Critically reflect on one’s own ways of handling archaeological data conceptually and theoretically
Being able to apply views and perspectives from cognitive neuroscience and adjacent disciplines to archaeological data and problems
Being able to formulate and voice one‘s own well-argumented opinion in discussions with others, in oral and written presentations
Method of instruction
Lecture course with and (obligatory) weekly student comments on the Blackboard. Your presence is obligatory; you are allowed to miss a meeting once, but will have to compensate that with an 800 words paper on the subject matter you missed.
Examination
On the basis of a written examination plus obligatory weekly postings to Blackboard on the weekly readings for Research MA students; on the basis of a substantial paper examination plus obligatory weekly postings to Blackboard for Ph D candidates.
Required reading
Steps to a ‘Neuroarchaeology’ of Mind (Special Section, various authors), Part 1 and Part 2, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18 (2008) nr. 3: 381-422, and 19 (2009) nr. 1: 73-110
Deacon, T. (1998). The Symbolic Species. The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain, New York&London: W.W.Norton&Company
Bolhuis, J. & C. Wynne (2009). Can evolution explain how minds work? Nature 458: 832-833, plus two comments in Nature 459 (2009): 506
Hauser, M., Chomsky, N. & Fitch, W. T. (2002). The Language Faculty: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science, 298, 1569-1579.
Gamble, C. (1998). Palaeolithic society and the release from proximity: a network approach to intimate relations. World Archaeology 29: 426-449.
Corbey, R., & Roebroeks, W. (1997). Ancient minds. Current Anthropology, 38(4), 917-921
Corbey, R. & W. Roebroeks (2001). Biases and double standards in the study of the Palaeolithic. In R. Corbey & W. Roebroeks (Eds.), Studying human origins: Disciplinary history and epistemology (pp. 67-76). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Corbey, R. & Roebroeks, W. (2007). From shell beads to syntax. Anthropology Today, 23(4), 24-26
Corbey, R. & Roebroeks, W. (2009, in press). The Acheulean enigma. Lithic Technology 34
Corbey, R. & A. Mol (in prep.). ‘By weapons made worthy’: morality and identity in Beowulf reconsidered (ms, see Blackboard)
Corbey, R. (2006). Laying aside the spear: Hobbesian war and the Maussian gift. In T. Otto, H. Thrane, & H. Vandkilde (Eds.), Warfare and Society: Archeological and Social Anthropological Perspectives (pp. 29-36). Aarhus: Aarhus University Press
Corbey, R. (2005). The metaphysics of apes: Negotiating the animal-human boundary. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, Chapters 4, 5 and 7.
As well as texts and items on the Blackboard, in particular by and on the authors mentioned in the above list of meetings.