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In our own image

In our own image. Iain Davidson Professor of Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology School of Human and Environmental Studies University of New England Armidale NSW AUSTRALIA.

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In our own image

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  1. In our own image Iain Davidson Professor of Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology School of Human and Environmental Studies University of New England Armidale NSW AUSTRALIA

  2. Paul Davies: “Life seems to be a fundamental, and not merely an incidental, property of nature”“Life has produced mind, and through mind, beings who do not merely observe the universe, but have come to understand it through science, mathematics and reasoning.” Quotations from “ Edge The World Question Centre 2005” answers to the question: “what do you believe but cannot prove?” http://www.edge.org/q2005/ accessed 29/05/2006 I am not sure I am meant to be here Iain Davidson Shamed into pettiness by the innumerable silences of stars Seven Pillars of Wisdom, p. 27.

  3. Marked bone from Abri Blanchard, SW France About 30 thousand years ago Marshack, A. 1991. The Roots of Civilization (Revised and expanded). New York: Moyer Bell Ltd.

  4. Timeline drawn by M. Roach Davidson, I. 1999 Sex, politics and religion. Archaeology for a polite society. Inaugural lecture, University of New England, Armidale .

  5. Patterson, N., D. J. Richter, S. Gnerre, E. S. Lander, and D. Reich. 2006. Genetic evidence for complex speciation of humans and chimpanzee. Nature. 13 May 2006 Tree from Davidson, I. 1999. "The game of the name: continuity and discontinuity in language origins," in The origins of language. What nonhuman primates can tell us. Edited by B. J. King, pp. 229-268. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research.

  6. Stephen Kosslyn: “The mind is what the brain does”“Your mind may arise not simply from your own brain, but in part from the brains of other people.” Stonehenge, NSW

  7. Graph from Davidson, I. 1999. "The game of the name: continuity and discontinuity in language origins," in The origins of language. What nonhuman primates can tell us. Edited by B. J. King, pp. 229-268. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research. • Selection against big brains removed • without change in body size because of changes in • nutrition (cooking), and probably secondary altriciality • Selection against big brains and big body • size removed because of changes in nutrition, • and thermoregulation

  8. Davidson I. in press. 'As large as you need and as small as you can'--implications of the brain size of Homo floresiensis. In Mental states: evolution, function, nature, ed. A Schalley, D Khlentzos. Amsterdam: John Benjamins 2. Selection against small brains stronger because of COMPETITION through language use 1. Selection against small brains stronger because of COMPETITION, particularly in use of fine motor skills in stone tool making and use in food getting Flo

  9. Nowak: “Cooperation and language define humanity. Every special trait of humans is a derivative of language.” Davidson, I., and W. Noble. 1992. Why the first colonisation of the Australian region is the earliest evidence of modern human behaviour. Archaeology in Oceania 27:135-142. Dennett: “acquiring a human language (an oral or sign language) is a necessary precondition for consciousness—in the strongest sense of there being a subject, an I, a something it is like something to be”

  10. Noble and Davidson on evolutionary emergence of language Noble, W., and I. Davidson. 1996. Human evolution, language and mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Language and mindedness are learned at our mothers’ breasts Joint attention Evolutionary emergence of bipedalismEmergence of prolonged infant dependency Changed circumstances for learning and transmission of knowledgeSymbolic potential of indexical signs

  11. Noble and Davidson on evolutionary emergence of language Noble, W., and I. Davidson. 1996. Human evolution, language and mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Language and mindedness are learned at our mothers’ breasts Joint attention Evolutionary emergence of bipedalismEmergence of prolonged infant dependency Changed circumstances for learning and transmission of knowledgeSymbolic potential of indexical signs

  12. Noble and Davidson on evolutionary emergence of language Noble, W., and I. Davidson. 1996. Human evolution, language and mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Language and mindedness are learned at our mothers’ breasts Joint attention Evolutionary emergence of bipedalismEmergence of prolonged infant dependency Changed circumstances for learning and transmission of knowledgeSymbolic potential of indexical signs

  13. Noble and Davidson on evolutionary emergence of language Noble, W., and I. Davidson. 1996. Human evolution, language and mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Language and mindedness are learned at our mothers’ breasts Joint attention Evolutionary emergence of bipedalismEmergence of prolonged infant dependency Changed circumstances for learning and transmission of knowledgeSymbolic potential of indexical signs

  14. Davidson, I. & W.C. McGrew 2005Stone tools and the uniqueness of human culture. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11:793-817. Artefacts from Lokalalei, Kenya Roche, H., A. Delagnes, J.-P. Brugal, C. Feibel, M. Kibunjia, V. Mourre, and P.-J. Texier. 1999. Early hominid stone tool production and technical skill 2.34 Myr ago in West Turkana, Kenya. Nature 399:57-60.

  15. Semantic meanings and stone tools Davidson, I. 2006. "Stone tools and the evolution of hominin and human cognition." Conference paper at Society for American Archaeology, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2006. Byrne, R. W., P. J. Barnard, I. Davidson, V. M. Janik, W. C. McGrew, Á. Miklósi, and P. Wiessner. 2004. Understanding culture across species. Trends in cognitive sciences 8:341-346. I acknowledge Phil Barnard’s help with this table

  16. Table from Davidson, I. 2005. Beyond mysticism? Review of Jackendoff, Ray 2002. Foundations of language. Brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Linguistics and the human sciences 1:337-346.

  17. “and in one bound he was free…”

  18. Conscious sensibility • Conscious attentiveness • Conscious articulateness Lobster from http://www.jewishworldreview.com/twerski/twerski_vayeilech.php3

  19. Davidson’s version of “like poles repel” The wise avoid the whys

  20. Explanations require understanding of processes and historical sequences of events

  21. Symbols and art Main events

  22. self and other real and imaginary this world and other worlds the relationship between real life and the perceivable universe time at different scales. “Everyone should visit the Pilbara before they die” Richard Arculus Davidson, I. 1997. "The power of pictures," in Beyond art: Pleistocene image and symbol, Edited by M. Conkey, O. Soffer, D. Stratmann, and N. G. Jablonski, pp. 128-158. San Francisco: The California Academy of Sciences.

  23. Atran: “There is no God that has an existence apart from people’s thought of God…but there is a mental (cognitive and emotional) process common to science and religion of suspending belief in what you see and take for obvious fact.” Rainbows Morals Chosenness Power within society Justification for conflict without “Religions…interpret, in a symbolic form, social needs and collective interests” Durkheim

  24. That is all I have to say

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