Visuospatial integration: perspective in cognitive archaeology

Abstract

Cognitive archaeology is based on the assumption that behaviors can reveal cognitive capacities, and that archaeology can provide inferences on behaviors. Additional information comes from the fossil record (paleoneurology) and from methods in neuroscience (neuroarchaeology). Visuospatial functions can be investigated from all these perspectives. In archaeology, visuospatial capacity can be investigated in terms of space and geometry according to information on tools, tool use, and space organization. In paleoneurology, changes at the parietal areas have been described in Neandertals and modern humans. In terms of functions, parietal areas have been associated with tool use, eye-hand coordination, simulation, and body-environment integration. Neandertals have been hypothesized to display a mismatch between their neurosomatic organization and their complex culture. The evolution of the modern human brain involved changes probably associated with the precuneus, a medial element integrating visual and body stimuli with memory, largely connected with the prefrontal areas and with the intra-parietal sulcus, which is decisive to coordinate the eye-hand system. Visuospatial functions represent a major interface between brain and environment, and hence are particularly interesting for theories in extended mind. Archaeology supplies different possibilities to investigate visuospatial behaviors, which makes these hypotheses partially testable.