Hoffecker - Landscape of the mind: human evolution and the archaeology of thought

LANDSCAPE OF THE MIND

HUMAN EVOLUTION AND THE

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THOUGHT

LANDSCAPE OF THE MIND

JOHN F. HOFFECKER

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK

Columbia University Press

Publishers Since 1893

New York Chichester, West Sussex

cup.columbia.edu

Copyright 2011 John F. Hoffecker

All rights reserved

E-ISBN 978-0-231-51848-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hoffecker, John F.

Landscape of the mind : human evolution and the archaeology of thought / John F. Hoffecker.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index

ISBN 978-0-231-14704-0 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-231-51848-2 (e-book)

1. Human evolution. 2. BrainEvolution. 3. Thought and thinking.

I. Title.

GN281.H62 2011

153.4dc22 2010045026

A Columbia University Press E-book.

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References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

TO THE MAN AND HIS WORK

V. GORDON CHILDE

(18921957)

CONTENTS

ALTHOUGH READERS NEED NOT concern themselves with the particulars, death was very much on my mind as I wrote Landscape of the Mind. More to the point, the bitter gulf that lies between the death of a person as a biological organism and the potential immortality of his or her thoughts was on my mind. It reflects a conviction that the mind is an entity that transcends both biological space (that is, an individual brain) and biological time. Another conviction is that weI refer to not only archaeologists, but also students of other disciplineshave been studying something important that remains only vaguely defined.

If the ultimate source of the mind is the individual brainan unmistakable product of evolutionary biologysomething has emerged with the mind, something that involves properties not found elsewhere in the biological realm. Some refer to them as emergent properties and attribute them to the almost unimaginable complexity of the system they represent. It is a system much greater than the estimated 1 million billion synaptic connections in an individual brain (itself described as the most complex object in the known universe). At some point in human evolution, probably not very long ago, humans evolved the capacity for transmitting thoughts from one brain to others by means of externalized symbols. This created a super-brain within each social group and probably marked the advent of both the mind and what many of my colleagues in archaeology refer to as modernity.

The characteristic of the mind most important to our lives is creativitythe capacity for the seemingly limitless recombination of thoughts expressed as words or artifacts into hierarchically organized structures with no prior existence. The first bow and arrow is one example, and Catcher in the Rye is another. The advent of creativity changed everything. It brought forth onto the Earth something new, analogous to the origin of life itself. The creative mind has been developing and accumulating these structures ever since. One of the consequences is that most of us spend most of our time in a landscape shaped largely by structures of the mind, not by the processes of geomorphology or evolutionary biology.

Another conviction that readers will find expressed in this book is that archaeology can contribute to an understanding of the mind, including its origin. Although much of archaeological method may seem rather simple and antiquated, the data of the archaeological record is largely a trail of fossil thought. This is a consequence of the ability, very rare among living organisms (the honeybee being an example), to project mental representations outside the brain, which was something accomplished initially with the hands and later with the vocal tract. A central theme of this book is that by reaching out to touch and eventually alter their own thoughts, evolving humans made the mind.

As I wrote this book, I was acutely conscious of how the creativity of othersmany of them no longer livinghad provided much of the structure of thought contained here. The thoughts of V. Gordon Childe (18921957) about archaeology and history are fundamental, as are the ideas of R. G. Collingwood (18891943), who was an influence on Childe. Some major ideas that readers will find in this book about the relationship between humans and their artifacts were articulated by Andr Leroi-Gourhan (19111986) several decades ago, although most English-speaking archaeologists are unaware of his contribution in this realm. Noam Chomskys ideas about languageespecially those of the past two decadesare an essential foundation. Much of what I have written about the evolution and spread of modern humans is based on the work of Richard G. Klein.

My parents, John Savin and Felicity Hoffecker, nurtured my interest in archaeology and history from an early age. My father was especially interested in Collingwoods work and often spoke about it, along with that of Benedetto Croce (18561952), who was, in turn, an influence on Collingwood. Many of the illustrations were done by Ian Torao Hoffecker. They are all part of this book.

A number of people read and commented on specific chapters of the book, and I am grateful for their time and thoughts. Colleagues and friends who read the critically important (and heavily revised) first chapter include Jolanta M. Grajski, Nancy R. Lyons, Marina Petrova, and Shelly Sommer. The first chapter also reflects fruitful discussions with Bob Levin and Valerie E. Stone.

My colleagues in archaeology at the University of Colorado in Bouder reviewed in the congenial setting of our monthly luncheon, and I would like to thank Cathy Cameron, Art Joyce, Steve Lekson, Paola Villa, and Richard Wilshusen for their thoughts and comments. Three anonymous reviewers for Columbia University Press plowed through the complete draft, and their comments and criticisms were very helpful.

I am especially grateful to the staff at Columbia University Press. Patrick Fitzgerald, Publisher for the Life Sciences, embraced this project with enthusiasm at the outset and remained an important source of guidance and encouragement throughout the two and half years that I labored on the draft. The entire manuscript was edited by Irene Pavitt. Editorial assistant Bridget Flannery-McCoy and her predecessor, Marina Petrova, also were very helpful.

[T]he mind is in its own nature immortal.

R EN D ESCARTES

TOWARD THE END OF HIS MEMOIR, Vladimir Nabokov expressed his frustration at having developed an infinity of sensation and thought within a finite existence.Nabokov died in 1977 andlike all other forms of organic liferelinquished his conscious sensation of being. But many of his thoughts continue to exist, as they do on this page, and in this way Nabokov transcended his finite existence.

It is a power that almost all humans possessto transcend their existence as organic beings by communicating thoughts that will endure after they die. The ideas of an individual may be communicated in writing or print or electronic media and, before the invention of writing, by oral tradition. In this way, the seemingly ephemeral thoughts that flow through the brain may endure for centuries or more.

Nonverbal thoughts may be communicated through art and technology. The aurochs mentioned by Nabokov refer to cave paintings of the Upper Paleolithic that were created more than 30,000 years ago. Much of the archaeological record, like the historical written record, is a record of thought.

External Thought