The Invention of Technology: Prehistory and Cognition

Technical study of tools made from unknapped stone from early times to the Neolithic has allowed the identification of marks found on these tools and inferences from them about the actions they involved. On the basis of this analysis, a schema is proposed for the evolution of technical actions. It seems that we have here a concrete example of a mechanism of technical innovation and that this mechanism may be simply an illustration of a more general schema of the evolution of technology. Comparing these results with those of cognitive psychology on problem solving, it seems possible to propose several hypotheses about the cognitive content of major technical innovations by Homo sapiens sapiens and their less sapient predecessors. If these hypotheses are confirmed, then the cognitive processes that trigger invention must have appeared as early as the Lower Paleolithic. Reprinted by permission of the University of Chicago Press. © All rights reserved