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Many animal species use tools, but human technical engagement is more complex. We argue that there is coevolution between technical engagement and advanced forms of causal cognition in the human lineage. As an analytic tool, we present a classification of different forms of causal thinking. Human causal thinking has become detached from space and time, so that instead of just reacting to perceptual input, our minds can simulate actions and forces and their causal consequences. Our main thesis is that, unlike (...) the situation for other primate species, an increasing emphasis on technical engagement made some hominins capable of reasoning about the forces involved in causal processes. This thesis is supported in three ways: We compare the casual thinking about forces of hominins with that of other primates. We analyze the causal thinking required for Stone Age hunting technologies such as throwing spears, bow hunting and the use of poisoned arrows, arguing that they may serve as examples of the expansion of casual cognition about forces. We present neurophysiological results that indicate the facilitation of advanced causal thinking. (shrink)

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With this contribution we analyze ancient hunting technologies as one way to explore the development of causal cognition in the hominin lineage. Building on earlier work, we separate seven grades of causal thinking. By looking at variations in force dynamics as a central element in causal cognition, we analyze the thinking required for different hunting technologies such as stabbing spears, throwing spears, launching atlatl darts, shooting arrows with a bow, and the use of poisoned arrows. Our interpretation demonstrates that there (...) is an interplay between the extension of human body through technology and expanding our cognitive abilities to reason about causes. It adds content and dimension to the trend of including embodied cognition in evolutionary studies and in the interpretation of the archeological record. Our method could explain variation in technology sets between archaic and modern human groups. (shrink)

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With this contribution I explore the relationship between attention development in modern archers and attention as a cognitive requirement for ancient bow hunting – a techno-behaviour that may have originated sometime between 80 and 60 thousand years ago in sub-Saharan Africa. Material Engagement Theory serves as a framework for the inextricable interrelatedness between brain, body and mind, and how practicing to use bimanual technologies shapes aspects of our cognition, including our ability to pay attention. In a cross-disciplinary approach, I use (...) cognitive-motor neuroscience to demonstrate the role of attention in modern archery and highlight brain regions that are activated or ‘pressured’ during aiming with attention. One of these areas, the precuneus together with the default mode network, serves as neurological hub for accurate bimanual material engagement practiced over a distance. The likely development of the precuneus, in tandem with the unique globularisation of the human skull, can be traced in theHomo sapiensfossil record since about 160 thousand years ago, reaching the modern range by around 100 thousand years ago within a continuum of brain modification. Variation in human neuro-genetic adaptations since our split from the Denisovan and Neanderthal groups further suggest differences in attention as a cognitive trait between recent big-brained humans. I suggest that these observations may serve as bridging theory for understanding how some aspects of the sapient ability to pay attention was developed. (shrink)

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It is widely thought that causal cognition underpins technical reasoning. Here we suggest that understanding causal cognition as a thinking system that includes theory of mind (i.e., social cognition) can be a productive theoretical tool for the field of evolutionary cognitive archaeology. With this contribution, we expand on an earlier model that distinguishes seven grades of causal cognition, explicitly presenting it together with a new analysis of the theory of mind involved in the different grades. We then suggest how such (...) thinking may manifest in the archaeological or stone tool record and techno-behaviors of the last three million years or so. Our thesis is threefold: (a) theory of mind is an integral element of causal cognition; (b) generally speaking, the more advanced causal cognition is, the more it is dependent on theory of mind; and (c) the evolution of causal cognition depends more and more on mental representations of hidden variables. Ultimately, the final or seventh grade of causal cognition allows us to reason from a network of hidden variables that, amongst other things, enables the learning, manufacture, and use of complex technological systems. It also facilitates the seamless mapping of knowledge between personal (egocentric), physical, and social networks that allows for newly devised and innovative technical and social outcomes. (shrink)

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In a series of papers, we have argued that causal cognition has coevolved with the use of various tools. Animals use tools, but only as extensions of their own bodies, while humans use tools that act at a distance in space and time. This means that we must learn new types of causal mappings between causes and effects. The aim of this article is to account for what is required for such learning of causal relations. Following a proposal by Grush (...) and Springle, we argue that learning of inverse mappings from effects to causes is central. Learning such mappings also involves constraints based on monotonicity, continuity and convexity. In order for causal thinking to extend beyond space and time, mental simulations are required that predict the effects of actions. More advanced forms of causal reasoning involve more complicated forms of simulations. (shrink)

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Osiurak and Reynaud do not explain the evolutionary emergence and development of the elephant in the room, that is, technical cognition. We first argue that there is a tight correlation between the evolution of cumulative technological culture and the evolution of reasoning about abstract forces. Second, intentional teaching plays a greater role in CTC evolution than acknowledged in the target article.

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