The brain-artefact interface (BAI): a challenge for archaeology and cultural neuroscience

Abstract

Cultural neuroscience provides a new approach for understanding the impact of culture on the human brain (and vice versa) opening thus new avenues for cross-disciplinary collaboration with archaeology and anthropology. Finding new meaningful and productive unit of analysis is essential for such collaboration. But what can archaeological preoccupation with material culture and long-term change contribute to this end? In this article, I introduce and discuss the notion of the brain-artefact interface (BAI) as a useful conceptual bridge between neuroplastisty and the extended mind. I argue that a key challenge for archaeology and cultural neuroscience lies in the cross-disciplinary understanding of the processes by which our plastic enculturated brains become constituted within the wider extended networks of non-biological artefacts and cultural practices that delineate the real spatial and temporal boundaries of the human cognitive map.

Fig. 1

Plain clay tokens, Mesopotamia, ca. 4000 BC. The cone, spheres and disk represented various grain measures; the tetrahedron stood for a unit of labor. (Courtesy: Denise Schmandt-Besserat.)