Cognitive archaeology without behavioral modernity: An eliminativist attempt

During the last decade, evidence of artifacts typically associated with the European Upper Palaeolithic has gradually accumulated in the archaeological record of early modern human and late Neanderthal populations. These artifacts, in particular instances of “symbolic” body ornaments, have been considered proof of “behavioral modernity” and used to draw inferences about the cognitive equivalence between primitive and modern human populations. Very recently, however, proponents of holistic mapping and material engagement theory have provided two separate lines of argument criticizing the notion of behavioral modernity and its use in cognitive archaeology. Major problems with this concept have been identified at both the epistemological and metaphysical levels. In this paper I will articulate a critique of behavioral modernity by integrating the preliminary tenets of the aforementioned approaches within a unitary perspective. This integrative process will provide close examination of behavioral modernity under the lights of scientific eliminativism. I will argue that behavioral modernity fails to instantiate a natural kind and thus it cannot be the object of reliable scientific analysis. Furthermore, behavioral modernity does also not represent a useful functional kind, for it offers no explanatory role in the mapping of artifacts and mental architectures. The current use of behavioral modernity in cognitive archaeology is grounded in a series of arbitrary categories and unwarranted inferences. In consequence, this notion can, and in fact, does harm this domain, because it fosters incommensurable theories. For these reasons, I conclude that behavioral modernity ought to be eliminated from the cognitive archaeology vocabulary.