ERC Consolidator Grant · 2021
The Evolution of Early Symbolic Behavior
Understanding the unique evolutionary trajectory taken by the human species is impossible without appreciation of our special capacities for symbolic cognition and behavior. But how did these capacities evolve during the late Middle Palaeolithic? Within only the last couple of decades, early milestones in human symbolic behavior have been continuously revised as new excavations across the globe challenge previous long-held assumption. However, at the same time we have made little progress in our understanding of past symbolic behaviour and the mechanisms by which it evolved. As tools of the mind, symbols are constituted by the intangible cognitive processes they evoke in pragmatic use…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.