1. Amber V. Wadlington
Dr. Mary Scoggin
Anthropology 410 Capstone
15 May 2013
Cognitive Archaeology: What were they thinking?
Cognitive Archaeology tackles the questions of what people of the past thought, how they
arrived at these thoughts, and to what extent did the thoughts of people affect the world around
them (Renfrew, Prehistory). It is important to understand what people thought in the past in order
to understand the evolution of human thought. It is also important to understand the thought
patterns of humans in the past so that we can better understand how our thoughts shaped and
were shaped by the world around us. From primate stone tool production and the traces of its
creation to petroglyphs and pictographs in Chaco Canyon, Cognitive Archaeology can give us
insight in to the thoughts of the human mind and their manifestations. Cognitive Archaeology is
a relatively new theoretical position and methodological approach and is constantly shaped and
shaping the research that utilizes its ideas and approaches. It has inspired new ways of looking at
long-established problems and materials in a variety of deep-seated disciplines(Mithen).
Cognitive Archaeology presents a systematical and empirical way of looking at the structures
and uses of symbols and the cognitive processes that are at the root of them by utilizing
semiotics, psychology and the wider sciences (Wynn). This article is meant to argue the position
that Cognitive Archaeology is equipped to give us insight in to past human thought and how they
formed and were formed by the world through the analysis of symbols and symbolic categories. I
will explain how Cognitive Archaeology as a theoretical and practical concept can answer the

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questions it claims. I will discuss two case studies that have utilized Cognitive Archaeology in
their assessment of archaeological remains. Finally I will discuss how Cognitive Archaeology is
related to my proposed archaeological research in the American Southwest.
There are two primary focal points of Cognitive Archaeology. The first is investigating
the genesis and development of human cognition in modern times. Cognitive Archaeology looks
back querying things like: when did we begin to think as we do now and where do our primate
ancestors exhibit and utilize expanded cognitive capabilities(Wynn). The second point of focus is
examining the degree to which human thought inclined the acuity of perception of the entire
human environment and how humans interacted with it and in effect created
society/culture(Renfrew). I will be addressing the later specifically. Most often the mental
illustration and state of mind that is associated with and artifact is derived from the way people
use that object, landscape, building or site(McCauley and Lawson). These connections allow
archaeologists to add to our understanding of cultures, practices and the cognitive representation
that goes along with them (Renfrew and Zubrow 51). These practices are associated with art,
religion, politics, education, language, science and many more(McCauley and Lawson). These
practices as linked with cognitive representations are very easy to perceive. These practices are
based on the mental representations of the people that practice them. For example a ritual such as
a wedding is inspired by the practices of those that are engaging in the ritual and in turn those
practices are based off of beliefs or mental representations of those participants. In turn the
material remains that may be left behind as a result of those practices can be accessed in order to
visualize the mental representations of the practitioners (McCauley and Lawson).
A central method used by Cognitive Archaeology is to study the ways in which past
cultures symbolically represented their thoughts(Renfrew, Prehistory). This method is of primary

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importance to my research. Symbols are described by Collin Renfrew as that with which we
speak, and to a large extent what we think with. Symbolism is used by the human mind through
ontological categories. These ontological categories are cognitive concepts allow the mind to
arrange and store huge amounts of information categorically. This type of categorization allows
the mind to access this information without having to know specific details about individual
members of a category (Renfrew, Cognition and Material Culture). Broad ideas or concepts
such as ANIMAL provide a great deal of information that cues the human mind to manifest
inferences that are separate from that of TOOL. Within each of these categories there are sub-
categories that allow the human mind to make further detailed inferences on similarities and
differences providing a categorical frame. Without these artifacts or material goods a variety of
structures of human thought could not have formed. This categorical interdependent relationship
of material goods, social relationships and cognitive categories is not only evident in a
descriptive sense but an ascriptive sense as well. Descriptively we may conceive of a house
which may bring up manifestations of floors, ceilings, doors beds and roofs while ascriptivly we
might infer the ideas of comfort and warmth to that same category(Renfrew and
Zubrow)(Renfrew, Cognition and Material Culture 3).
Cognitive Archaeology has been used as a guiding theoretical position in the assessment
of a variety of material remains at many locations from homonin sites that are millions of years
old to American Indian sites that are only a few hundred years old. My focus is on the
interpretation not of the evolution of human cognition but of the interdependent relationships
between human cognition and that of material goods, landscapes, and architectural features. The
first example is based on Archaeology and Religion: a Comparison of the Zapotec and Maya by
Joyce Marcus. With this study Marcus accesses the way ethnohistoric forms can be used to

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create a framework that arranges archaeological data and conversely how archaeological data can
verify and augment ethnohistoric information. Marcus examines ethnohistoricdescriptions of the
Maya and Zapotec religion and compares them to information from the archaeological record
from the equivalent geographical regions of occupation. Ultimately Marcus compares the
Zapotec and Maya religion to see what similarities in pattern can be noted. Marcus states that
the Zapotec and May share so many principles that there is an observable prevalent religious
model that existed before Nahua speakers moved into the area. These patterns include concepts
such as a vital force or „wind‟, „breath‟ or „spirit‟. It also included Lightning as a potent mystical
power. This was evident in both the Zapotec calendar and Maya universe. An animalistic view of
the universe was shared by both Zapotec and Maya. Temples constructed by both the Zapotec
and Maya included a central room that was highly sacred with an out room that was less so. Both
religions had a hierarchical structure that included high priests, regular priests, sacrificial
coordinates and diviners. Sacrifices that included children, prisoners of war, animals, birds and
even their own blood were evident in both Zapotec and Maya religions. Both honored their
ancestors and royal ancestors were revered even more highly. Zapotec royal ancestors were
painted in tomb murals while Maya royal ancestors were depicted in carved stellae during the
same period in time. Ethnohistoric sources are confirmed by the archaeological record for every
one of these topics. The archaeological record has also corrected and expanded the ethnohistoric
record. For example the ethnohistoric sources do not reflect the evidence for the greater role that
women played in Maya religion which is evident in the archeological record. Archaeological
evidence can be used to correct these ethnohistoric models. This type of communication between
these two paths of evidence, archaeology and ethnohistory, strengthens both. Both Zapotec and
Maya peoples believed in a single crucial creator and a succession of supernatural powers that

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they represented by joined animalistic features. The Sun and Moon were more important to the
Maya while clouds and earthquakes were more relevant to the Zapotec. The ethnohistoric data
that was collected by the Colonial Spanish, of both the Zapotec and Maya, undervalued the
function of ancestor worship and mistook those ancestors for gods. However the ethnohistoric
data provided a great deal of rich and detailed information which enabled the clarification and
cross reference with the archaeological record that solidified the understanding of religion and
archaeology of the Zapotec and Maya (Marcus).
Another excellent study is from Ruth Van Dyke and is titled Memory, Meaning and
Masonry: A Late Bonito Chacoan Landscape. This study is extremely relevant because it works
directly with Chaco Canyon the area that I am planning my future personal research. Van Dyke
discusses the epic structural design of Chaco Canyon. She goes on to claim that it “was
constructed in order to convey, reinforce and challenge ideas about social, ritual, and
cosmological order.” At the beginning of the Late Bonito phase between 1100 and 1140 A.D.
architecture was used to significantly alter the Chacoan society. Van Dyke claims that social
memory can help clarify how this was achieved. Before this time during the classic Bonito phase
the fundamental Chacoan worldview was expressed through architecture. The tenets of their
world view included the Canyon as the center of the universe, the importance of directionality
and an equivalent dualism. At the beginning of the Late Bonito phase social and environmental
changes caused an interruption in the assurance of the ritual organization. The leaders
implemented a new architectural scheme that would affirm Chaco as a central place of
importance. The creation of six newly built great houses were pragmatically placed in
oppositional and nested patterns in order to invoke and confidence in its leaders and to draw new
followers by offering innovative and familiar surroundings. This newly constructed center was

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justified and accepted through its explicit configuration and reminiscent architectural reference
to Classic Bonito history. Van Dyke goes on to say that they may be unable to examine the world
view of the early Chacoans empirically, but the assumption that Chacoan landscape is instilled
with meaning much like the modern Pueblo people of the area can be made. Finally Van Dyke
ultimately argues that the idea of social memory extrapolates the connotations of cyclic or linear
references in architecture and the creation and imbued ideas of that reference in the distant past.
And that the leaders of the Late Bonito phase used these ideas to reform their power and
confidence and at the same time draw followers in the recreated world of Chaco Canyon (Van
Dyke). Van Dyke uses cognitive archaeology in order to interpret architecture, direction, and
power and how those in turn inform cognitive inferences.
I plan to do research in the four corners region of the American Southwest. New Mexico,
Arizona, Colorado and Utah make up the four corners region of the American Southwest, this
area was criss-crossed with trade routes running across the continent in many directions for
thousands of years pre-contact. It was home to many Native American tribes, including the
Anasazi, 19 tribes of Pueblo Indians and the Navajo(Nickens). The land is littered with every
type of relic that they left behind over several centuries. From burial sites to entire cities the
wealth of archaeological and cultural knowledge is spread across hundreds of miles of dessert
land. Some of the well-known archaeological sites in this area include places like Mesa Verde,
Cliff Palace, Chaco Canyon and Pueblo Bonito. I plan on utilizing Cognitive Archaeology when
analyzing rock art in these areas. Because rock art is basically symbols created by a culture we
would assume that the variety of different images that are created had meaning and are symbolic
representations of cognitive relationships between the perceived world and mind. Because we
can infer that the creation of symbols is directly related to though process and those thought

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processes relay social and cultural ideas we can utilize archaeological data along with
ethnographic data from the Pueblo and other research done on the Anasazi Indians to gain insight
into the life ways and cultural identity. I plan to use some of the concepts of Cognitive
Archaeology to make inferences about rock art in a variety of locations in the Four-corners
region. I am also going to attempt to utilize concepts of cognitive archaeology when looking at
the complex road system that was purposefully laid out in Chaco Canyon with Pueblo Bonito at
its center. Using this kind of analysis in order to provide some possible insight into these ideas
can bring about further discussion and possible understanding of the motivations and ideas of the
people that inhabited this area.
Through Cognitive Archaeology the answers to what people of the past thought and how
they arrived at those thoughts and to what degree the thoughts of those people affected the world
around them can be analyzed and fleshed out through a combination of professional fields
including, psychology, geology, biology, sociology and archaeology(Renfrew, Cognition and
Material Culture)(McCauley and Lawson).Through analysis of archaeological remains and
ethnohistoric data we are better able to understand what people thought in the past. It is
important to understand the thought patterns of humans in the past so that we can better
understand how our thoughts shaped and were shaped by the world around us. Cognitive
Archaeology is a relatively new theoretical position and methodological approach and is
constantly shaped and shaping the research that utilizes its ideas and approaches. It has inspired
new ways of looking at long-established problems and materials in deep-seated disciplines.
Cognitive Archaeology presents a systematical and empirical way of looking at the structures
and uses of symbols and the cognitive processes that are at the root of them by utilizing
semiotics, psychology and the wider sciences (Wynn). I explained how Cognitive Archaeology

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as a theoretical and practical concept has answered questions about religious identities of the
Zapotec and the Maya and how the idea of social memory extrapolates the connotations of cyclic
or linear references in architecture and the creation and imbued ideas of that reference in the
distant past. I have also discussed how Cognitive Archaeology will be useful to me in my
intended research of rock art in the Four-corners region and how an implemented road system
centered in Chaco canyon. Cognitive Archaeology is equipped to give us insight in to past
human thought and howthose thoughts formed and were formed by the world through the
analysis of symbols and symbolic categories.

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Works Cited
Fogelin, Lars. “The Archaeology of Religious Ritual.” Annual Review of Anthropology 36.1 (2007):
55–71. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.
Loubser, Johannes H. N. “Prefigured in the human mind and body: toward an ethnographically
informed cognitive archaeology of metaphor and religion.” Time and mind: the journal of
archaeology, consciousness and culture 3.2 (2010): 183–214. Print.
Marcus, Joyce. “Archaeology and Religion: A Comparison of the Zapotec and Maya.” World
Archaeology 10.2 (1978): 172–191. Web. 2 Mar. 2013.
McCauley, R.N., and E.T. Lawson. “Cognition, Religious Ritual, and Archaeology.” Ed. E
Kyriakidis. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Publications (2007): 209–254. Print.
Mills, Barbara J. “The Establishment and Defeat of Hierarchy: Inalienable Possessions and the
History of Collective Prestige Structures in the Pueblo Southwest.” American Anthropologist
106.2 (2004): 238–251. Web. 6 Mar. 2013.
Mithen, Steven. “Cognitive Archaeology, Evolutionary Psychology and Cultural Transmission, with
Particular Reference to Religious Ideas.” Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological
Association 7.1 (1997): 67–74. Web. 3 Mar. 2013.
Nickens, Paul R.; Larralde, Signa L.; Tucker, Gordon C. Jr. A Survey of Vandalism to Archaeological
Resources in Southwestern Colorado (Cult. Colorado State Office Bureau of Land Management,
Denver, 1981. Print.
Renfrew, Colin. Cognition and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Symbolic Storage. McDonald
Institute for Archaeological Research, 1998. Print.
---. Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind. Modern Library, 2008. Print.

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Renfrew, Colin, and Ezra B. W. Zubrow, eds. The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology.
Cambridge University Press, 1994. Print.
Van Dyke, Ruth M. Van. “Memory, Meaning, and Masonry: The Late Bonito Chacoan Landscape.”
American Antiquity 69.3 (2004): 413–431. Web. 15 Feb. 2013.
Wynn, Thomas. “Archaeology and Cognitive Evolution.” The Behavioral and brain sciences 25.3
(2002): 389–402; discussion 403–438. Print.