The Prehistory of the Mind: A Search for the Origins of Art, Religion and Science

364 Pages·1998·23.01 MB·English

by  Steven Mithen

A PHOENIX PAPERBACK
First published in Great Britain by Thames and Hudson Ltd in 1996
This paperback edition published in 1998 by Phoenix, a division of
Orion Books Ltd, Orion House, 5 Upper StMartin's Lane,
London WC2H 9EA
Copyright© 1996 Thames and Hudson Ltd, London
The right of Steven Mithen to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior permission of the copyright owner.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 0 75380 204 X
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
The Guernsey Press Co. Ltd,
Guernsey, Channel Islands
For my children
Hannah, Nicholas and Heather

Contents
Preface 1
1 Why ask an archaeologist about the human mind? 4
2 The drama of our past 14
3 The architecture of the modern mind 31
4 A new proposal for the mind's evolution 65
5 Apes, monkeys and the mind of the missing link 79
6 The mind of the first stone toolmaker 105
7 The multiple intelligences of the Early Human mind 129
8 Trying to think like a Neanderthal 166
9 The big bang of human culture: the origins
of art and religion 171
10 So how did it happen? 211
11 The evolution of the mind 223
Epilogue: the origins of agriculture 248
Notes and further reading 260
Bibliography 310
Illustration credits 349
Index 351

Preface
I
t took millions of years for the human mind to evolve. It is the
product of a long, gradual process with no predestined goal or
direction. During the final 2.5 million years of this process, our
ancestors left traces of their behaviour such as their stone tools,
food debris and paintings on cave walls. They only left written
records towards the very end of this period, starting a mere 5,000
years ago. Consequently to understand the evolution of the mind
we must look at our prehistory, for it was during that time that
the distinguishing features of the human mind arose, features such
as language and an advanced intelligence. To gain an under
standing of the mind leads on to an appreciation of what it means
to be human. I hope, therefore, that The Prehistory of the Mind
will be of interest not just to archaeologists and psychologists, but
to any moderately inquisitive and reflective reader.
I have tried to write a book that makes the evidence from pre
history accessible to readers who may never previously have heard
of an australopithecine or a handaxe. But this book also tries
to put forward a new theory for the evolution of the mind. The
academic audience who must judge this theory will need to see it
supported at a level of detail that is perhaps tedious for the general
reader. I cater for those scholars with extensive notes to provide
additional support for claims made within the text. These will also
be of value to students trying to get to grips with the complexities
of the archaeological record and human evolution.
Although the evolution of the mind was a slow, gradual
process, there were nevertheless key events which acted as turning
points for how the mind evolved. Similarly the evolution of this
book has been a gradual process, but one for which I can see
three defining events. Without these it wquld either not have been
2 Preface
written, or, like the mind, have remained in a rather primitive
state. After having my initial interest in prehistoric cognition
stimulated by reading the work of the American archaeologist
Thomas Wynn, the first of these defining events was in 1988 while
I was a Research Fellow at Trinity Hall in Cambridge. At lunch
one day the Master of the college, Sir John Lyons, casually asked
me whether I had ever read The Modularity of Mind by Jerry
Fodor. I hadn't, but did so immediately. And thus an idea about
the prehistory of the mind was sown within my mind, although
it remained there with little growth for the following six years.
Then-the second event-one evening in April1994, after having
left Cambridge and joined the staff at Reading University, I had
dinner with Leda Cosmides, John Tooby and Michael Jochim in a
beach restaurant in Santa Barbara, California. Leda and John
bombarded me with their ideas about an evolutionary psychology,
and gave me a list of books to read, each of which became critical
to the development of my work. Finally, a few months later, I chatted
with a colleague of mine, Mark Lake, as we ate at a motorway
service station somewhere on the M6 in the middle of the night while
driving to my excavations in Scotland. We talked about archaeology,
the mind and computers and I realized that it was time to get the
prehistory of the mind out of my mind and on to paper.
The opportunity to do so was granted by my colleagues in the
Department of Archaeology at Reading University who allowed
me to take a period of research leave, between January and March
1995, during which the first draft of this book was written. I am
grateful to my Reading colleagues not only for this period of leave
but for having provided such a pleasant and stimulating environment
for developing my version of cognitive archaeology since joining
them in 1992. Richard Bradley, Dick Byrne and Clive Gamble
kindly read that draft and provided many perceptive criticisms
and words of encouragement.
While re-writing the book many people provided me with new
references, their unpublished papers and simply their time - often
no more than a few words in conversation which, unknown to
them, were of such value to me. Others have been most helpful in
my research on ancient minds during my time in Cambridge and
Reading. I would particularly like to thank: Leslie Aiello, Ofer
Preface 3
Bar-Yosef, Pascal Boyer, Bob Chapman, Michael Corballis, Led a
Cosmides, Nyree Finlay, Bill Finlayson, Robert Foley, Chris
Knight, Alexander Marshack, Gilbert Marshall, Paul Mellars,
Richard Mithen, Steven Pinker, Camilla Powers, Colin Renfrew,
Chris Scarre, Rick Schulting, John Shea, Stephen Shennan, James
Steele, Chris Stringer and Thomas Wynn. Throughout that time,
Mark Lake has been a sounding board for my ideas and to him
I am particularly grateful. I also owe a debt to the editorial staff
at Thames and Hudson for their help during the final stages of
writing. And I would like to thank Margaret Mathews and Aaron
Watson for the line drawings.
Most of the writing for this book was undertaken on the dining
room table at home in the midst of the burly-burly of my family
life. Consequently my biggest thanks must go to my wife, Sue, and
to my children for suffering the piles of books and my constant
tapping at the word processor. It is indeed to my children, Hannah,
Nicholas and Heather, that I dedicate this book as thanks for
having such lively and thoroughly modern young minds.
1 Why ask an archaeologist
about the human mind?
T
he human mind is intangible, an abstraction. In spite of more
than a century of systematic study by psychologists and
philosophers, it eludes definition and adequate description, let
alone explanation. Stone tools, pieces of broken bone and carved
figurines - the stuff of archaeology - have other qualities. They
can be weighed and measured, illustrated in books and put on
display. They are nothing at all like the mind - except for the
profound sense of mystery that surrounds them. So why ask an
archaeologist about the human mind?
People are intrigued by various aspects of the mind. What is
intelligence? What is consciousness? How can the human mind
create art, undertake science and believe in religious ideologies
when not a trace of these are found in the chimpanzee, our clos
est living relative?1 Again one might wonder: how can archaeolo
gists with their ancient artifacts help answer such questions?
Rather than approach an archaeologist, one is likely to turn to
a psychologist: it is the psychologist who studies the mind, often
by using ingenious laboratory experiments. Psychologists explore
the mental development of children, malfunctions of the brain and
whether chimpanzees can acquire language. From this research
they may offer answers to the types of questions posed above.
Or perhaps one would try a philosopher. The nature of the
mind and its relation to the brain -the mind-body problem - has
been a persistent issue in philosophy for over a century. Some
philosophers have looked for empirical evidence, others have
simply brought their considerable intellects to bear on the subject.
There are other specialists one might approach. Perhaps a
neurologist who can look at what actually goes on in the
brain; perhaps a primatologist with specialized knowledge of