Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T13:12:18.423Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘A Cybernetic Wasteland’? Rationality, Emotion and Mesolithic Foraging

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

S. J. Mithen
S. J. Mithen
Affiliation:
The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 62 Sidney Street, Cambridge CB2 3JW
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In a recent discussion of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition, Julian Thomas decribed the Mesolithic as a ‘cybernetic wasteland’ (1988, 64). By this he was presumably referring to the picture we gain of Mesolithic society when ‘human behaviour [is seen] in terms of adaptive responses to environmental pressures’ (ibid., 59), which Thomas states as the basis of Mesolithic research. Is he justified in the use of this damning phrase? When archaeologists see human behaviour in an ecological framework do they deny people their humanity by turning them into robots, helpless ‘victims of externally-imposed circumstances’ (ibid., 61).

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , 1991 , pp. 9 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Albrethsen, S. E. & Petersen, E. B. 1976. Excavation of a Mesolithic cemetery at Vedbaek, Denmark. Acta Archaeologica 47, 1–28.Google Scholar
Andersen, S. H. 1985. Tybrind Vig: A preliminary report on a submerged Ertebølle settlement on the west coast of Fyn. Journal of Danish Archaeology 4, 52–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frijda, N. H. 1986. The Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Frijda, N. H. & Swagerman, J. 1987. Can computers feel? Theory and design of an emotional system. Cognition and Emotion 1(3), 235–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphrey, N. 1976. The social function of intellect. In Hinde, R. & Bateson, P. (ed.), Growing Points in Ethology, 303–17. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jochim, M. 1976. Hunter-gatherer Settlement and Subsistence. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kurland, J. & Beckerman, S. 1985. Optimal foraging and hominid evolution: labour and reciprocity. American Anthropologist 87(1), 73–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larsson, L. 1977. Mesolithic bone and antler artefacts from central Scania. Meddelandens fran Lunds Universitets Historika Museum, 1977–78, 28–67.Google Scholar
Larsson, L. 1984. The Skateholm project — A late Mesolithic settlement cemetery complex at a south Swedish Bay. Meddelandens fran Lunds Universitets Historika Museum, 1983–84, 1–38.Google Scholar
Mithen, S. 1989. Evolutionary theory and post-processual archaeology. Antiquity 63, 483–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mithen, S. 1990a. Thoughtful Foragers: A Study of Prehistoric Decision Making. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mithen, S. 1990b. Cognitive archaeology and evolutionary psychology. In Renfrew, C. & Zubrow, E. (eds), Ancient Minds: Elements of a Cognitive Archaeology (in press).Google Scholar
Møhl, U. 1978. Elsdyrskeltterne fra Skottemarke og Favbro. Skik og brug ved borealtidens jagter. Aarboger fra Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 5–32.Google Scholar
Oatley, K. & Johnson-Laird, P. 1987. Towards a cognitive theory of emotions. Cognition and Emotions 1, 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, R. 1986. An adaptive computer model for the evolution of plant collecting and early agriculture in the eastern valley of Oaxaca. In Flannery, K. (ed.), Guila Narquitz: Archaic foraging and early agriculture in Oaxaca. Mexico, New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Rowley-Conwy, P. 1983. Sedentary hunters: The Ertebølle example. In Bailey, G. (ed.), Hunter-Gatherer Economy in Prehistory, 111–26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shanks, M. & Tilley, C. 1987. Reconstructing Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shennan, S. 1992. Tradition, rationality and cultural transmission. In Preucel, R. (ed.), Processual and Post-processual Archaeology: The Current Debate. Carbondale: Centre for Archaeological Investigation.Google Scholar
Sousa, de R. 1987. The Rationality of Emotion. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephens, D. & Krebs, J. 1986. Foraging Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, J. 1988. Neolithic explanations revisited: The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Britain and south Scandinavia. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 54, 59–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winterhalder, B. 1986. Diet choice, risk and food sharing in a stochastic environment. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 5, 369–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zvelebil, M. & Rowley-Conwy, P. 1984. Transition to farming in northern Europe: a hunter-gatherer perspective. Norwegian Archaeological Review 17, 104–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zvelebil, M. & Rowley-Conwy, P. 1986b. Foragers and farmers in Atlantic Europe. In Zvelebil, M. (ed.), Hunters in Transition, 67–93. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar