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Making Tools and Making Sense: Complex, Intentional Behaviour in Human Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

Dietrich Stout  and
Thierry Chaminade
Dietrich Stout
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY, UK; Email: [email protected]
Thierry Chaminade
Affiliation:
Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, INCM, UMR6193, CNRS - Aix-Marseille Université, 31 Chemin Joseph Aiguier, 13402 Marseille Cedex 20, France; Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Stone tool-making is an ancient and prototypically human skill characterized by multiple levels of intentional organization. In a formal sense, it displays surprising similarities to the multi-level organization of human language. Recent functional brain imaging studies of stone tool-making similarly demonstrate overlap with neural circuits involved in language processing. These observations are consistent with the hypothesis that language and tool-making share key requirements for the construction of hierarchically structured action sequences and evolved together in a mutually reinforcing way.

Type
Special Section: Steps to a ‘Neuroarchaeology’ of Mind, part 2
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , February 2009 , pp. 85 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2009

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