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The Nature of Culture pp 57–63Cite as

Technological Transformations Imply Cultural Transformations and Complex Cognition

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Part of the book series: Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology ((VERT))

Abstract

As archaeologists, we cannot access culture or cognition directly; we can only interpret levels of cultural or cognitive complexity from circumstantial evidence or from technological evidence. Some technologies cannot be achieved without complex cognition . Interpreting technological, cognitive and cultural complexity requires carefully constructed bridging theory between archaeologically-recovered data and interpretations about behavior and human capacity. Some of the technologies that imply complex cognition also involve permanent transformations of their ingredients. Such technologies imply that the artisans were capable of conceptualizing cultural transformations . Iron Age material culture items clearly demonstrate the link between technological and cultural transformations. Metal furnaces are symbolically linked to human fertility and motifs on a number of artifacts are reminiscent of human rites of passage. I suggest here that material culture and motifs in the deeper past may similarly connect to cultural transformations, even though it is unlikely that the meaning of these can be decoded.

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Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the financial support of the National Research Foundation (NRF). The opinions expressed in this paper are not necessarily those of the NRF. I also acknowledge the ongoing support of the University of the Witwatersrand. I thank Miriam Haidle for inviting me to Tübingen to take part in the stimulating “Nature of Culture” conference. I thank all the conference organizers for their outstanding kindness and hospitality.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, PO WITS 2050, South Africa

    Lyn Wadley

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  1. Lyn Wadley
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Correspondence to Lyn Wadley .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt, Hessen, Germany

    Miriam N. Haidle

  2. Department of Early Prehistory and Quate, Institute of Pre- and Protohistory and M, Tübingen, Germany

    Nicholas J. Conard

  3. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Human, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Michael Bolus

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Wadley, L. (2016). Technological Transformations Imply Cultural Transformations and Complex Cognition. In: Haidle, M., Conard, N., Bolus, M. (eds) The Nature of Culture. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7426-0_6

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