scholarly journals Material Scaffolds in Numbers and Time

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karenleigh A. Overmann
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Numeration Systems ◽  
Blombos Cave

The present article develops a framework for interpreting Upper Palaeolithic artefacts from an analysis of material complexity, numeration systems and timekeeping using cultural categorizations, insights on the emergence of number terms in language, and the astronomy practices of 33 contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. Our key findings suggest that astronomy originates in the ability to estimate and infer contextual relations among natural phenomena and transitions from these natural associations to material representations and cognitive technologies that mediate conceptual apprehensions of time as a substance that can be quantified. Given that artefacts may act as scaffolds for explicit concepts of numbers, and numbers scaffold explicit concepts of time, prehistoric artefacts such as the Blombos Cave beads (c. 75,000 bp), Abri Blanchard and Cellier artefacts (c. 28,000 bp), and plaque from Grotte du Taï (c. 14,000 bp) may represent similar scaffolding and conceptual development in numbers and time. It is proposed that the prehistoric societies making these artefacts possessed, in addition to material complexity, the abilities to express quantities in language and to use material externalization and cognitive technologies. Furthermore, the Abri Blanchard artefact is proposed to represent externalized working memory, a very modern interaction between mind and material culture.

scholarly journals Material Scaffolds in Numbers and Time

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karenleigh A. Overmann
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Cognitive Technology ◽  
Number Concepts ◽  
Numeration Systems ◽  
Blombos Cave

The present paper develops a framework for interpreting Upper Paleolithic artifacts from an analysis of material complexity, numeration systems, and timekeeping using cultural categorizations (Hayden & Villeneuve, 2011), insights on the emergence of number terms in language (Menninger, 1992), and the astronomy practices of 33 contemporary hunter–gatherer societies (Yale’s Electronic Human Relations Area Files World Cultures database). Key findings: (1) an absence of societies with minimal material complexity and later-stage numeration systems, suggesting that material scaffolding may be important to realizing explicit number concepts, (2) the consistency of material complexity with both early- and later-stage numeration systems, emphasizing that material complexity may precede and inform the development of complexity in numeration systems, (3) the compatibility of astronomical practices with the spectrum of complexity in material culture and numeration systems, suggesting that the awareness of time may precede both, and (4) the increasing quantification of time consistent with greater material and numeration complexity, suggesting the availability of numbers as a cognitive technology may enable the structuring of time. These findings suggest that astronomy originates in the ability to estimate and infer contextual relations among natural phenomena and transitions from these natural associations to material representations and cognitive technologies that mediate conceptual apprehensions of time as a substance that can be quantified. Given that artifacts may act as scaffolds for explicit concepts of numbers and numbers scaffold explicit concepts of time, prehistoric artifacts such as the Blombos Cave beads (ca. 75,000), Abri Blanchard and Cellier artifacts (ca. 28,000), and Taï plaque (ca. 14,000) may represent similar scaffolding and conceptual development in numbers and time. It is proposed that the prehistoric societies making these artifacts possessed, in addition to material complexity, the abilities to express quantities in language and to use material externalization and cognitive technologies. Further, the Abri Blanchard artifact is proposed to represent externalized working memory, a very modern interaction between mind and material culture.

L’iride e la Trinità: Osservazioni sulle fonti di Basilio, Epistula 38,5

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-399
Author(s):  
Francesco Verde
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Interesting Point ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Deep Interest

Abstract The focus of this contribution is to examine the section 5 (Courtonne) of Basil’s Letter 38 devoted to the rainbow considered as a physical metaphor of the Trinity. The main purpose is to scrutinize the likely ancient pagan sources of Basil’s description of rainbow’s formation. The present article concludes by pointing out that the sources used by Basil could be traced back to Aristotle’s Meteorology and the Stoics (especially Posidonius), without denying an Epicurean influence too. The most interesting point is that the author of the letter seems to occasionally modify the ancient sources on the rainbow he consults in order to make the explanation of the rainbow consistent with his theological/Trinitarian scope. Since several studies confirmed the deep interest of Basil in the explanation of natural phenomena (always for theological and not scientific goals) on the basis of the theories of the ancient pagan Greek philosophers, it cannot be ruled out the possibility that Basil actually was the author of this epistle. This question is very problematic; it is not resolved but, in my opinion, it should also be reconsidered in the light of the part of the letter devoted to the comparison with the rainbow.

scholarly journals Phenomenology of Visuo-spatial Working Memory Task Performance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleš Oblak ◽  
Anka Slana Ozimič ◽  
Grega Repovš ◽  
Urban Kordeš
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Bodily Feelings ◽  
Psychological Tasks

In experimental cognitive psychology, objects of inquiry have typically been operationalized with psychological tasks. If we are interested in measuring the target phenomena, we must inquire into the validity of the task; that is, to what extent does the task elicit the phenomenon in question. If we subscribe to the second view, evaluating the validity and the interpretation of the gathered data can be supplemented by understanding the experience of solving psychological tasks. The aim of the present article is to investigate how individuals experience performing a psychological task, specifically, a visuo-spatial working memory task. We present ethnographic descriptions of different ways individuals can experience the same task. We focus on aspects of experience that comprise the overall sense of experience (e.g., bodily feelings, emotional atmosphere, mood). We discuss the methodological implications of our findings and the possibility of conducting a neurophenomenology of visuo-spatial working memory.

The Material Culture of Kinishba

1939 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 314-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon C. Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Preliminary Report ◽  
Arts And Crafts ◽  
Previous Issue ◽  
American Antiquity ◽  
The Arts

The architecture and burials of the prehistoric pueblo of Kinishba have been presented in a previous issue of American Antiquity. The present article is a preliminary report of the lesser objects of material culture as represented by the pottery, stone and bone implements, ornaments, a few charred fragments of basketry and textiles, food, and ceremonial objects. The majority of these specimens are made from imperishable material. Clothing, sandals, baskets, various types of textiles, wooden implements, and other perishable materials have but a very short existence in open sites such as Kinishba. Hence the following description of the artifacts presents only a limited picture of the arts and crafts of these prehistoric people.

scholarly journals Trajes do clero: diálogos sobre patrimônio, poder e comunicação

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renilda vale
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Symbolic Power ◽  
Object Parts

The present article has purpose to analyse clothes as important patrimony in the study of the relations of the man with society, the hierarchic and symbolic power exerted through the suits used for the priests during the liturgical celebrations and the importance of the intrinsic and attributed value of this object on the material culture. Using as research object parts of the collection ecclesiastical Suits of the Museum of the Suit of the Textile of the Foundation Feminine Institute of the Bahia. Keywords: liturgical cloth, Feminine Institute, hierarchy, communication and power.

scholarly journals The role of materiality in numerical cognition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karenleigh A. Overmann
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Cognition ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Cultural Complexity ◽  
Engagement Theory ◽  
Cognitive Archaeology ◽  
Finger Counting ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Blombos Cave

Numerical elaboration and the extension of numbers to non-tangible domains such as time have been linked to cultural complexity in several studies. However, the reasons for this phenomenon remain insufficiently explored. In the present analysis, Material Engagement Theory, an emerging perspective in cognitive archaeology, provides a new perspective from which to reinterpret the cultural nexus in which quantification develops. These insights are then applied to representative Neolithic, Upper Palaeolithic, and Middle Stone Age artifacts used for quantification: clay tokens from Neolithic Mesopotamia, notched tallies from the European Upper Palaeolithic, hand stencils with possible finger-counting patterns as documented at Cosquer and Gargas, and stringed beads from Blombos Cave in South Africa.

The ‘Lower Perigordian’ in French Archaeology

1966 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 156-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas F. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
French Word ◽  
Material Artifacts ◽  
Tool Technology ◽  
Geological Context

An evaluation of the concept of ‘Lower Perigordian‘ is attempted in this paper. The conclusion of this work suggests that the Lower Perigordian is a fallacious concept, that it can no longer be accepted as the first stage of the French Upper Palaeolithic, and that the so-called Lower Perigordian stone industries may not even represent a unified stage in the development of stone-tool technology.The terms ‘industry’ and ‘assemblage’ will be used in this paper in the sense defined by Braidwood (1946, 133–6). An industry is a collection of tools of one category of material (here stone or bone only) which appears in archaeological context, or in an untransported geological context. An assemblage is ‘… a variety of categories of artifacts and non-artifactual materials which appears in archaeological context.’ The non-artifactual aspect of an assemblage most notably provides information on geological context and physical relationships. Many of the collections of tools to be dealt with below can in no way be considered assemblages, but we still know something of their archaeological contexts, so they have not yet sunk to the level of Braidwood's ‘aggregations’. ‘Culture’ will be used in its anthropological sense to mean the whole of patterned, learned behaviour shared by a group of human beings, and the effects of this behaviour on material artifacts. If set off by quotation marks, ‘culture’ may refer also to the ‘material culture’ of other writers or be a convenient translation of the French word ‘civilization.’

scholarly journals Timing of the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Iberian inland (Cardina-Salto do Boi, Côa Valley, Portugal)

2020 ◽  
Vol 98 ◽  
pp. 81-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thierry Aubry ◽  
Luca Antonio Dimuccio ◽  
António Fernando Barbosa ◽  
Luís Luís ◽  
André Tomás Santos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Optically Stimulated Luminescence ◽  
Osl Dating ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Alluvial Deposits ◽  
Anatomically Modern Humans

AbstractThe timing of the Neanderthal-associated Middle Palaeolithic demise and a possible overlap with anatomically modern humans (AMH) in some regions of Eurasia continues to be debated. The Iberian Peninsula is considered a possible refuge zone for the last Neanderthals, but the chronology of the later Middle Palaeolithic record has undergone revision and has increased the debate on the timing of Neanderthal extinction. Here we report on a study of the 5-m-thick archaeological stratigraphy of the Cardina-Salto do Boi, an open-air site located in inland Iberia, from which optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages were obtained for Middle and Upper Palaeolithic occupations preserved in overbank alluvial deposits. Geomorphology, archaeostratigraphy, stone-tool evolution, and OSL dating support the persistence of Neanderthals after 41 ka in central Iberia; the transition between the Middle Palaeolithic material culture and the AMH-associated Aurignacian blade and bladelet production is estimated to lie between 34.0 ± 2.0 ka and 38.4 ± 1.9 ka. Our results demonstrate that investigations focusing on different geomorphological situations are necessary to overcome the current limitations of the evidence and to establish more consistent models for Neanderthal disappearance and AMH expansion in the Iberian Peninsula.

scholarly journals The Architecture of Construction

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosamund Diamond
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Construction Technique ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Construction Methods ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Technical Advances ◽  
Primary Location ◽  
Construction Knowledge ◽  
Student Projects

The place of technical discourse in studio projects has been much debated.  The studio is the primary location to engage requisite construction knowledge creatively, in which assumptions about materials  could be transformed into tangible investigations with the skill and freedom to reinvent and invent. The paper will investigate the relationship of the craftsmanship of familiar construction methods to a broader context of fabrication and new material possibilities, in order to discuss how construction technique could be drawn into the conceptual centre of design studio projects. How the action of challenging construction conventions with the wide range of available technical advances could converse with the specificity of construction to its local conditions of building and place. Using some case studies, it will propose the value of construction to explore the broader conditions of architecture including its physical and critical topographies.Construction teaching in the studio will be considered in terms of its interrogation and description, as the basis for a discourse, using previous studio experiments.How can construction be developed in the studio so that it is embedded in the conceptual  development of student projects?How can studio construction investigations develop connections to place?In what ways can construction knowledge enable innovation without resisting the value of traditional material culture?

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document