Consciousness, Creativity, and Self at the Dawn of Settled Life

Download or read book Consciousness, Creativity, and Self at the Dawn of Settled Life written by Ian Hodder and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over recent years, a number of scholars have argued that the human mind underwent a cognitive revolution in the Neolithic. This volume seeks to test these claims at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey and in other Neolithic contexts in the Middle East. It brings together cognitive scientists who have developed theoretical frameworks for the study of cognitive change, archaeologists who have conducted research into cognitive change in the Neolithic of the Middle East, and the excavators of the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük who have over recent years been exploring changes in consciousness, creativity and self in the context of the rich data from the site. Collectively, the authors argue that when detailed data are examined, theoretical evolutionary expectations are not found for these three characteristics. The Neolithic was a time of long, slow and diverse change in which there is little evidence for an internal cognitive revolution.