4E cognition in the Lower Palaeolithic

A special issue on 4E cognition—cognition as embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended—introduces a new approach to studying the Lower Palaeolithic. For the past 50 years, paleoanthropology has relied on typological and representational cognitive models that assume all thinking occurs inside the head, treating archaeological artifacts merely as external traces of internal processes. The 4E framework overcomes this dualist logic by treating the archaeological record as an integral part of thinking itself, allowing a more parsimonious cognitive archaeology. It views stone tools, the primary evidence of hominin thought, as active participants in mental life and offers a better grounding for understanding hominin technical expertise, a key component of cognitive evolution.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This essay introduces a special issue focused on 4E cognition (cognition as embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended) in the Lower Palaeolithic. In it, we review the typological and representational cognitive approaches that have dominated the past 50 years of paleoanthropology. These have assumed that all representations and computations take place only inside the head, which implies that the archaeological record can only be an ‘‘external’’ product or the behavioral trace of ‘‘internal’’ representational and computational processes. In comparison, the 4E approach helps us to overcome this dualist representational logic, allowing us to engage directly with the archaeological record as an integral part of the thinking process, and thus ground a more parsimonious cognitive archaeology. It also treats stone tools, the primary vestiges of hominin thinking, as active participants in mental life. The 4E approach offers a better grounding for understanding hominin technical expertise, a crucially important component of hominin cognitive evolution.