Consciousness, Creativity, and Self at the Dawn of Settled Life

Challenges the widely held assumption that the Neolithic saw an overall cognitive revolution.

Ian Hodder (Edited by)

9781108484923, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 March 2020

304 pages, 50 b/w illus. 3 tables
26 x 18.3 x 2.2 cm, 0.81 kg

'… an introduction by Hodder (Stanford Univ.), which presents the central problem of paleocognition and the Çatalhöyük site, the cognitive scientists consider whether cultural change could cause or encourage cognitive change, while the archaeologists look at various classes of artifacts and their distributions in time and space at Çatalhöyük and other Neolithic sites in the Near East to see if their changes could be related to cognitive changes in the people who made and used them.' L. L. Johnson, Association of American Publishers

Over recent years, a number of scholars have argued that the human mind underwent a cognitive revolution in the Neolithic. This volume seeks to test these claims at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey and in other Neolithic contexts in the Middle East. It brings together cognitive scientists who have developed theoretical frameworks for the study of cognitive change, archaeologists who have conducted research into cognitive change in the Neolithic of the Middle East, and the excavators of the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük who have over recent years been exploring changes in consciousness, creativity and self in the context of the rich data from the site. Collectively, the authors argue that when detailed data are examined, theoretical evolutionary expectations are not found for these three characteristics. The Neolithic was a time of long, slow and diverse change in which there is little evidence for an internal cognitive revolution.

Part I. Introduction to the Themes, Site, and Region: 1. Introduction to the themes of the volume – cognition and Çatalhöyük Ian Hodder
2. Hunter-gatherer home-making? Building landscape and community in the Epipalaeolithic Lisa Maher
3. When time begins to matter Marion Benz
Part II. Higher Levels of Consciousness: 4. Cognitive change and material culture – a disturbed perspective Michael Wheeler
5. Conscious tokens? Lucy Bennison-Chapman
6. Brick sizes and architectural regularities Marek Z. Baranski
7. The meronomic model of cognitive change, and its application to Neolithic Çatalhöyük Chris Thornton
8. Containers and creativity in the Late Neolithic Upper Mesopotamian Olivier Nieuwenhuyse
9. Creativity and innovation in the geometric wall paintings at Çatalhöyük Ian Hodder and Nazli Gurlek
Part III. Greater Awareness of an Integrated Personal Self: 10. Personal memory, the scaffolded mind, and cognitive change in the Neolithic John Sutton
11. Adorning the self Milena Vasic
12. From parts a whole? Exploring changes in funerary practices at Çatalhöyük Scott D. Haddow, Eline M. J. Schotsmans, Marco Milella, Marin A. Pilloud, Belinda Tibbets and Christopher J. Knusel
13. New bodies – from houses to humans at Çatalhöyük Anna Fagan.

Subject Areas: Egyptian archaeology / Egyptology [HDDG], Prehistoric archaeology [HDDA], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1], European history [HBJD]