NDLI: Do early body ornaments prove cognitive modernity? A critical analysis from situated cognition

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Garofoli, Duilio
Copyright Year	2014
Abstract	The documented appearance of body ornaments in the archaeological record of early anatomically modern human and late Neanderthal populations has been claimed to be proof of symbolism and cognitive modernity. Recently, Henshilwood and Dubreuil (Current Anthropology 52:361–400, 2011) have supported this stance by arguing that the use of beads and body painting implies the presence of properties typical of modern cognition: high-level theory of mind and awareness of abstract social standards. In this paper I shall disagree with this position. For the purposes of the argument, body ornaments are divided in three categories: aesthetic, indexical and fully-symbolic, on the basis of the necessary and sufficient conditions to construct meaning for each category. As previously acknowledged by a number of authors, I will argue that the abilities considered by Henshilwood & Dubreuil necessarily apply only to fully symbolic ornaments and they do not extend to the aesthetic and indexical categories. Indeed, a series of situated strategies can be sufficient to process non-symbolic categories of ornaments, through their phases of initiation, understanding and maintenance. Since these strategies could be implemented also by non-modern cognitive architectures, it is concluded that early body ornaments are currently unable to support cognitive equivalence between primitive and modern human populations.
Starting Page	803
Ending Page	825
Page Count	23
File Format	PDF
ISSN	15687759
Journal	Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
Volume Number	14
Issue Number	4
e-ISSN	15728676
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2014-03-08
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Cognitive archaeology Enactivism Early body ornaments Mindreading Phenomenology Philosophy of Mind
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Philosophy Cognitive Neuroscience

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