Hunting for evidence of cognitive planning: Archaeological signatures versus psychological realities

Cognitive planning is acknowledged as one of the hallmarks of modern cognition. However, identifying objective evidence of cognitive planning in the archaeological record has been difficult and controversial. While some archaeologists have argued that so-called behaviourally “archaic” Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis were unable to plan, others have proposed that complex material culture could not have been produced without sophisticated planning abilities. There is agreement, however, that evidence for cognitive planning can readily be found in the archaeological record. This review presents an alternative interpretation based on research in psychology, neuropsychology and reinforcement learning. It outlines alternative mechanisms that can drive behaviour including goal-directed actions, habits, hierarchical reinforcement learning and fixed action patterns. We contest current archaeological theory by arguing that: 1) for methodological reasons, evidence for cognitive planning cannot be found in the archaeological record and, 2) basic learning processes, based on contingency and contiguity, are powerful enough to be the building blocks of substantially more complex behaviours including the acquisition and “invention” of technological behaviours. We suggest that cognitive archaeology focus on collaborative projects to empirically test existing theories utilising techniques such as neuroimaging, dual-task paradigms and mathematical modelling. Such experiments would greatly improve the concordance of archaeological theories with those of allied disciplines.