#375 Karenleigh Overmann: Cognitive Archaeology, Numeracy, and Language
RECORDED ON JUNE 21st 2020.
Dr. Karenleigh A. Overmann is an associate professor of anthropology (adjunct) at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS) Center for Cognitive Archaeology. She recently completed two years of postdoctoral research at the University of Bergen (MSCA individual fellowship, EU project 785793). She earned her doctorate in archaeology from the University of Oxford as a Clarendon scholar. She also has a master’s degree (psychology) and bachelor’s (anthropology, philosophy, English) from UCCS. She’s the editor of Squeezing Minds From Stones: Cognitive Archaeology and the Evolution of the Human Mind.
In this episode, we talk about cognitive archaeology. First, we go through some basics, and ask what are archaeological remnants, and where archaeology starts in our evolutionary history, and we also talk about cumulative culture, and the discipline of cognitive archaeology. We discuss if modern hunter-gatherers make for good models of ancient peoples, and what we can learn about cognition from ancient artifacts. We ask if technology expands our cognitive capacities, and the get into more specific topics, like the relationship between tool-making and tool-use and conceptualization, and language. We also talk about numeracy and literacy.
Time Links:
What are archaeological remnants?
Cumulative culture
Cognitive archaeology
Are modern hunter-gatherers good models of ancient peoples?
What can we learn about cognition from archaeological remnants?
Recreating ancient artifacts
Does technology expand our cognitive capacities?
Tools and concepts
Objects and language
Numeracy
Counting with objects
Hypotheses in cognitive archaeology
Tool-making and the evolution of language
Follow Dr. Overmann’s work!
Follow Dr. Overmann’s work:
The Center for Cognitive Archaeology: https://bit.ly/2Yms9WV
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/3ldHMtV
Books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ggsErN
Squeezing Minds From Stones: https://amzn.to/31eeGCy