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This study focuses on two broad questions concerning how variability in lithic technology relates to the biological and cultural evolution of humans. First, when did cumulative culture evolve? To address this question, the complexity of lithic technologies spanning hominin evolution was compared to the complexity of non-human primate technologies, and

This study focuses on two broad questions concerning how variability in lithic technology relates to the biological and cultural evolution of humans. First, when did cumulative culture evolve? To address this question, the complexity of lithic technologies spanning hominin evolution was compared to the complexity of non-human primate technologies, and complexity achievable through randomized flaking behaviors in order to identify when lithic technologies developed that were more complex than technologies that may not require cumulative culture. The results suggest that a modern-human like capacity for cumulative culture was likely shared with the last common ancestor between modern humans and Neanderthals, and likely was developing prior to 2 mya. The second question focuses on whether one can reliably detect migrations and population expansions in the Pleistocene through lithic technology alone. To address this question, spatio-temporal variability in technology was compared to variability across cultural traits that do retain evidence of history: phonemes in human languages. Then, variability across technologies was measured in regions where population and migration histories are known a priori: these data include carefully selected assemblages relating to the migrations of Ancestral Puebloan people from Northern Arizona into the river valleys of Central and Southern Arizona, as well as assemblages relating to the expansion of Austronesian speakers into Near, and Remote Oceania. While lithic technologies show similar spatio-temporal patterning to phonemes in languages, suggesting potential for strong historical signal in lithic technology, within Oceania and Arizona technologies either weakly, or do not reflect population history. This is likely in part because prehistoric people tended to rapidly change their technologies to suit new circumstances. The above studies highlight the usefulness of broad, comparative studies of technological variation in addressing questions about the causes of variability in lithic technology and how lithic technology relates to the evolution of the genus homo.
Contributorspaige, jonathan (Author) / Perreault, Charles (Thesis advisor) / Barton, Michael (Committee member) / Peeples, Matthew A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
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This chapter is not a guide to embodied thinking, but rather a critical call to action. It highlights the deep history of embodied practice within the fields of dance and somatics, and outlines the value of embodied thinking within human-computer interaction (HCI) design and, more specifically, wearable technology (WT) design.

This chapter is not a guide to embodied thinking, but rather a critical call to action. It highlights the deep history of embodied practice within the fields of dance and somatics, and outlines the value of embodied thinking within human-computer interaction (HCI) design and, more specifically, wearable technology (WT) design. What this chapter does not do is provide a guide or framework for embodied practice. As a practitioner and scholar grounded in the fields of dance and somatics, I argue that a guide to embodiment cannot be written in a book. To fully understand embodied thinking, one must act, move, and do. Terms such as embodiment and embodied thinking are often discussed and analyzed in writing; but if the purpose is to learn how to engage in embodied thinking, then the answers will not come from a text. The answers come from movement-based exploration, active trial-and-error, and improvisation practices crafted to cultivate physical attunement to one's own body. To this end, my "call to action" is for the reader to move beyond a text-based understanding of embodiment to active engagement in embodied methodologies. Only then, I argue, can one understand how to apply embodied thinking to a design process.

ContributorsRajko, Jessica (Author)
Created2018