4E cognition in the Lower Palaeolithic
Thomas Wynn, Karenleigh A. Overmann, Lambros Malafouris 2 citations
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.