Evidence, Inference and Human Evolution: Essays in the Philosophy of Cognitive Archaeology

Abstract

The promise of cognitive archaeology is considerable: the discipline can potentially outline a chronology of human cognitive evolution, and offer insights into the dynamics involved. However, the field faces two major methodological hurdles. First, it is a historical science; one that requires running inferences from the archaeological record to the cognitive capacities of our hominin ancestors. Second, it requires synthesising work from a disparate range of disciplines, including archaeology, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology. The overall goal of this thesis is to demonstrate how philosophers of biology can help meet these challenges using the philosophical tools of analysis and synthesis. Chapters 1-3 analyse various inferential strategies employed by cognitive archaeologists, and identify problems for those strategies. These problems relate to theoretical diversity, cultural variation, and the explanation of historical phenomena with multiple causal inputs. Chapters 1-3 also propose solutions to these problems. Together, they contribute to the growing literature aimed at developing a reliable inferential framework for cognitive archaeology. Chapters 4-6 synthesise work from archaeology, cognitive science and evolutionary biology in order to produce first-order claims about the evolution of particular cognitive capacities. These capacities include technical cognition, language, and theory of mind. Chapters 4-6 align with a growing trend amongst philosophers of biology for unifying theoretical work across disciplinary boundaries. Producing a robust science of human evolution is a daunting challenge. In this thesis, I aim to highlight the role both cognitive archaeology and philosophy of biology can play in addressing this challenge. I demonstrate that interdisciplinary work is essential to understanding our evolutionary origins. Show more