Cognition and Human Evolution: Cognitive Development in Hominins

This report delves into the cognitive evolution of hominins and early modern humans, drawing upon archaeological evidence to illustrate key developments. The study examines the cognitive processes involved in tool making, particularly the creation and use of stone tools, highlighting the planning depth, raw-material selectivity, and manual dexterity demonstrated by early hominins. The report further explores the significance of rock art, cave usage, and the consumption of fermented products as indicators of complex cognitive abilities. It also discusses the role of causal reasoning, brain size, and environmental factors in shaping cognitive evolution. The report covers topics like the Middle Stone Age, the development of composite tools, and the use of various materials. The report also references the work of various archaeologists and researchers to support its claims. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings, emphasizing the advancements in cognitive abilities from the hominins to the middle stone age men.

COGNITION AND
HUMAN EVOLUTION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSIONS..............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Hominins and early modern humans have always been a major subject of interest for
archaeologist. There are various evidence that reflects the development in the cognition of
hominins and early modern humans (Alperson-Afil and et. al., 2009). In this report, this
evolution among the human beings will be studied along with relevant examples to support the
statements of archaeologists with appropriate evidences. Also, this study will help in
understanding that how specifically human cognitive skills evolved.
MAIN BODY
Cognition of hominins is the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding with the
help of three basic factors which are: thoughts, experiences and the senses. All these elements
results in development of one's cognition. In context to the hominins, there are numerous facts
stated and proved by archaeologists that signifies the development of cognition in hominins and
early modern humans. This understanding can be revealed from the tools made from stone for
the preying purpose. This development is because of the sense of hunger and the though to eat
an animal. These tools were discovered by the archaeologists at Lomekwi 3 (LOM3) from West
Turkana, Kenya (Klein and Bird, 2016). This manufacturing and use of stone tools by hominins
have been later researched extensively by various archaeologists. This creation made all the
primatalogists to appreciate the thinking behind the tools.
There are various abilities that were shown by this research such as raw-material
selectivity, planning depth and manual dexterity. Successful completion of the creation of the
tools signifies the presence of all these elements that can be characterised as a "cognitive leap".
In addition to this, making this unexpected thing from nowhere is also considered as "something
from nothing' by various researcher (Fuentes, 2015). There are several inferences from the
analysis of LOM3 artefacts can be used to modify the aspects of cognitive abilities of hominins
and early modern humans. Besides this, it has been considered that the early modern humans
were so fond of the Lomekwi technologies. It can be observed from the presence of block sizes
of different sizes and numerous percussion marks on the cortical surfaces are all proof of their
technological aspect and their skills of understanding the things. In addition to this, they have
developed sharp objects so that they can kill the animals (Laughlin, 2015). This understanding
behind this reflects their deep thinking and logics of preying.
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In addition to this, there are various caves that have been discovered. The use of these
caves by the hominins for living also states their cognitive abilities. The hot and cold senses, the
though of protecting themselves from the wild animals, etc. dictates that they were mentally
active and creative. The cognition of shelter as basic need came in lights after that. Besides the,
their creativeness was not limited up to this extent only (Wadley, 2010). The archaeologists have
found several rock arts which have some type of messages inscribed on them. If these
interpretations are guessed accurately then it will considered to be figurative or iconographic.
This process of rock art signifies the values, mental constructs and visual responses of early
modern age humans. This factor also ensure the presence of the vision, the eye, the optic nerve
and chasm. In addition to this, Archaeologists have found different patterns of the rock arts that
states the creative thinking of the hominins. According to the Lewis and Harmand, (2016), the
presence of drug plant and fermented beverages observed by the researches states the prehistoric
time consumption of these substances. This discovery states that are also having a good
understanding of the flora and fauna and its processing. Fermented products required good
knowledge of processing of plants and other raw materials. Thus, this cognition also passed by
the archaeologists.
Besides this, studies of primate cognition helped in inferring that there is a range of
cognitive abilities that are shared between human and apes. Consequently, these studies also
emphasise on the factors that makes human beings different from the ape. In addition to this, the
time and method of the evolution of cognition of hominins is also focused in them (Heine,
2015). Various archaeologists have observed that the feature that distinguishes a human mind
from an ape is its potential for causal reasoning. This skill leads them to find the reason behind
every thing. This is the most significant factor after development of human brain. The presence
of brain in both the apes and hominins was observed from the fossils. However, the causal
reasoning was the reason behind its evolution in early modern men. The development of the
hominins can be revealed from a number of activities and discoveries that were been carried out
by them. For instance: Initially, they used the stone tools for killing the animals and eating them
raw. Later, as the development goes on and the invention of fire took place, these hominins and
early modern humans started to heat the food for enhancing the taste (Fuentes, 2014). All these
are the senses such as taste, odour and the thoughts that resulted in the improvement of
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cognition. In addition to the the processing and consumption of flora and fauna is the biggest
example of the development of the cognition of hominins and early modern humans.
Trend towards increasingly large brains over the Pio-Pleisocene is one of the most
distinct feature of current human evolution. Hominins and early modern age humans were having
cranial capacity which is slightly larger than that of the living apes. The brain sized is recorded to
be increased in the span of 3 million years (Miklósi, 2014). It is extremely expensive to grow and
maintain the brain as it affect the metabolic system. The potential factors that drives the
encephalization of hominins are climate, predation, sociality, language evolution, metabolic
demands and life-history changes. By considering climate as a force, the hominin
encephalization is driven by three climatic processes. Out of the, the first process of cooling,
drying and expansion forces individuals to alter the resources. This is also mentioned in the
archaeological record of Pliocene. The next climatic factors is the result of an increasingly
unpredictable climate. The third is the effect of climatic pulses that causes abrupt environmental
shifts. The resources used by hominins in the different phases reflect their brain size. In this the
relationship between the brain size and ecology variability is causal. Other than that predation
according to the group-size and open habitat signifies their cognitive abilities of having risks
from primates of larger group (Kratschmer, Haidlr and Lombard, 2014). Similarly, the starting of
taking parts in social activities emphasise on their increasing demands more than just eating and
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Illustration 1: Tools by hominins and early modern men
Source: Fuentes, 2015

preying. Also, metabolic demands and changes in the life history can be observed to assure the
development of brain size and understanding capacity among hominins.
The process of complex cognition began at the dawn of the Middle Stone Age about
300,000 years ago. It has been observed that composite tool making period was started after that
time only (Henrich, 2015). The creation of composite tools involves numerous steps that reveals
the presence of complex understanding such as planning, coordination and segregation of
multiple activities, materials to be choose, etc. In addition to these, various steps were included
in the process such as collection of ingredients in which all the raw material that are required
were gathered like straight sticks of woods, firewood, rocks for flakes, hammer stone, haematite,
coarse-grained flat rocks, gum and Hypoxis rigidula leaves. After this, processing of components
is done. In this, the stone flakes were knapped, firstly for cutting the wooden shafts and then for
making appropriate sharp inserts for the weapons. In addition to this, sticks were shaped to build
the shafts on L-shaped platforms. After that, haematite nodules were ground after rubbing them
on coarse slabs. For the light joining, simple adhesives made from the plant gum have been used
(Morgan and et. al., 2015). Also, compound adhesives were also prepared by them using Gum
plant, Ochre and Coarse aggregate for a rigid fixture.
Knapping of tools states about their ability to pre-plan the structure they are wanting.
Use of various elements and gathering them for the design reflects their ability to recognise the
things they will need. Wooden cutting and shaping are the factors that signifies the creative edge
of the hominins. Performing the operation on L-shaped platform also account in their creative
thinking abilities (Schuppli and et. al., 2016). Besides this, the most important among them is to
prepare the different type of Gums for various joints. This thing state that they have studied and
have knowledge of the stability of the joints. All these points describes the evolution of complex
cognition abilities of hominins and middle stone age men.
CONCLUSIONS
Development in the cognition of hominins and early modern age people is studied in this
report. Different actions of them are described in the essay that shows their understanding. In
addition to this, their evolution is explained on the basis of the discoveries of archaeologists to
support them with evidences.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alperson-Afil, N. & et. al., (2009). Spatial organisation of hominin activities at Gesher Benot
Ya’aqov, Israel. Science, New Series. 326. 1677-1680.
Fuentes, A. (2014). Human evolution, niche complexity, and the emergence of a distinctively
human imagination. Time and Mind. 7(3). 241-257.
Fuentes, A. (2015). Integrative anthropology and the human niche: toward a contemporary
approach to human evolution. American Anthropologist. 117(2). 302-315.
Heine, S. J. (2015). Cultural Psychology: Third International Student Edition. WW Norton &
Company.
Henrich, J. (2015). The secret of our success: how culture is driving human evolution,
domesticating our species, and making us smarter. Princeton University Press.
Klein, R. & Bird, D. (2016). Shellfishing and human evolution. Journal of Anthropological
Archaeology. 44. 198-205.
Kratschmer, A. R., Haidle, M. N., & Lombard, M. (2014, March). Bow-and-arrow technology:
mapping human cognition and perhaps language evolution. In Evolution of Language:
Proceedings of the 10th International Conference (EVOLANG10)(pp. 467-468).
Laughlin, C. (2015). Neuroarchaeology. Time and Mind, 8, 335-349.
Lewis, J. & Harmand, S. (2016). An earlier origin for stone tool making: Implications for
cognitive evolution and the transition to Homo. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society B. 371. 20150233
Miklósi, Á. (2014). Dog behaviour, evolution, and cognition. OUP Oxford.
Morgan, T. J. H.. & et. al. (2015). Experimental evidence for the co-evolution of hominin tool-
making teaching and language. Nature communications. 6.
Schuppli, C. & et. al. (2016). Life history, cognition and the evolution of complex foraging
niches. Journal of human evolution. 92. 91-100.
Wadley, L. (2010). Compound-adhesive manufacture as a behavioural proxy for complex
cognition in the Middle Stone Age. Current Anthropology. 51. s111-s119
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