Hominin cognition: The null hypothesis.

Stibbard-Hawkes, Duncan N E

Abstract

The target article explores material culture datasets from three African forager groups. After demonstrating that these modern, contemporary human populations would leave scant evidence of symbolic behaviour or material complexity, it cautioned against using material culture as a barometer for human cognition in the deep past. Twenty-one commentaries broadly support or expand these conclusions. A minority offer targeted demurrals, highlighting (1) the soundness of reasoning from absence; and questioning (2) the "cognitively modern" null; (3) the role of hunter-gatherer ethnography; and (4) the pertinence of the inferential issues identified in the target article. In synthesising these discussions, this reply addresses all four points of demurral in turn, and concludes that there is much to be gained from shifting our null assumptions and reconsidering the probabilistic inferential links between past material culture and cognition.

Citation

Stibbard-Hawkes, D. N. E. (2025). Hominin cognition: The null hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 48, Article e23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X24001055

• Journal Article Type: Other
• Acceptance Date: Jan 1, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Jan 14, 2025
• Publication Date: 2025-01
• Deposit Date: Feb 14, 2025
• Journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences
• Print ISSN: 0140-525X
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-1825
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 48
• Article Number: e23
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X24001055
• Keywords: Animals, Hominidae - psychology, Culture, Anthropology, Cultural - methods, Cognition - physiology, Humans
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3362754