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Tribal Lore in Present‐day Paleoanthropology: A Case Study
Author(s) -
SheetsJohnstone Maxine
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
anthropology of consciousness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1556-3537
pISSN - 1053-4202
DOI - 10.1525/ac.1996.7.4.31
Subject(s) - denial , paleoanthropology , consciousness , symbol (formal) , history , function (biology) , epistemology , natural (archaeology) , philosophy , psychology , psychoanalysis , evolutionary biology , biology , archaeology , linguistics
This essay critically examines ways in which cognitivist tenets function as tribal lore in the current paleoanthropological controversy over the relationship between Neandertals and modern humans. It does this through an analysis of Stringer and Gamble's characterization of the behavior of "Moderns" as "symbolic behavior," showing how their underlying conception of a symbol is muddled and nowhere substantiated. It shows further how their denigration of Neandertal behavior as mere "survival" or "imitative behavior" effectively separates the mental from the physical and reduces Neandertal behavior to a mere physical happening. The essay shows how a denial of mental evolutionary continuities protects our own "Modern" preeminence and perpetuates cherished tribal lore about ourselves. Its concluding section specifies an alternative approach to an understanding of Neandertals that does not dichotomize mind and body and thus, does not sever consciousness from its natural corporeal moorings.