Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-8mjnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T06:33:03.135Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Skill Learning and Human Brain Evolution: An Experimental Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2015

Dietrich Stout
Affiliation:
Paleolithic Technology Lab Department of Anthropology, Emory University, 1557 Dickey Drive Atlanta, GA 30322, USA Email: dwstout@emory.edu
Nada Khreisheh
Affiliation:
Paleolithic Technology Lab Department of Anthropology, Emory University, 1557 Dickey Drive Atlanta, GA 30322, USA Email: nada.n.khreisheh@emory.edu

Abstract

Increasing reliance on skill-intensive subsistence strategies appears to be a hallmark of human evolution, with wide-ranging implications for sociality, brain size, life-history and cognitive adaptations. These parameters describe a human technological niche reliant on efficient intergenerational reproduction of increasingly complex foraging techniques, including especially the production and effective use of tools. The archaeological record provides a valuable source of evidence for tracing the emergence of this modern human condition, but interpretation of this evidence remains challenging and controversial. Application of methods from psychology and neuroscience to Palaeolithic tool-making experiments offers new avenues for establishing empirical links between technological behaviours, neurocognitive substrates and archaeologically observable material residues. Here we review recent progress and highlight key challenges for the future.

Type
Special Section: Teaching and Learning
Copyright
Copyright © The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)