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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Journal | Volume | Article

142830

Do early body ornaments prove cognitive modernity?

a critical analysis from situated cognition

Duilio Garofoli

pp. 803-825

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.

Publication details

Published in:

Satne Glenda (2015) Developmental, comparative and conceptual issues. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14 (4).

Pages: 803-825

DOI: 10.1007/s11097-014-9356-0

Full citation:

Garofoli Duilio (2015) „Do early body ornaments prove cognitive modernity?: a critical analysis from situated cognition“. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14 (4), 803–825.