Assessing Hominin Cognitive Evolution through Problem-Solution Distance Modeling: A Case Study Based on Acheulean Technology at Olduvai Gorge (Northern Tanzania)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Stone tool making has proven to be essential in human evolution and evolutionary cognitive archaeology studies (Herzlinger et al. 2017; Martín-Ramos 2022; Martín-Ramos and Steele 2023). In the case of the Acheulean technocomplex, concepts such as innovation, imposition of arbitrary form, and artifact variability have been linked to cognitive traits such as forward planning, spatial intelligence, self-recognition, or symmetry perception. In this sense, the research presented here explored the links between Acheulean tool production and use and hominins’ Working Memory Capacity. The examination of the technological strategies employed in the manufacture of Acheulean Large Cutting Tools (LCTs) served as the basis of a problem-solution distance analysis (Haidle 2009; Muller et al. 2017) following Haidle’s cognigram methodology (Haidle 2012). Ultimately, this research identified substantial diachronic changes in technological complexity across Olduvai Beds II, III and IV, thought to have occurred as an adaptive response to the isotropy, shape, and size of the local raw material boulders. This analysis suggests that the cognitive skills of hominins within Bed III were similar to those at Bed II, but that a considerable and likely progressive increase in working memory capacity might have taken place throughout Bed IV.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37980.0