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Don't ignore cognitive evolution during the three million years that preceded the archaeological record of material culture!

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2025

Dean Falk*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA dfalk@fsu.edu www.deanfalk.com
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

The target article rightly questions whether the archaeological record is useful for identifying sea changes in hominin cognitive abilities. This commentary suggests an alternative approach of synthesizing findings from primatology, evolutionary developmental biology, and paleoanthropology to formulate hypotheses about cognitive evolution in hominins that lived during the three million years that preceded the record of material culture (the Botanic Age).

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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