James Cole (University of Southampton; jnc201@soton.ac.uk) and Lisa Cashmore (University of Southampton; lac1@soton.ac.uk)

The British Academy “Lucy to Language: the archaeology of the social brain” is a multi-disciplinary project aimed at exploring how the early hominid brain evolved from its primate beginnings among the earliest australopithecines (ca 3-5 million years ago) to the modern human potential of the Upper Palaeolithic (ca 50,000 years ago), with its final expression in the dramatic social and economic changes of the last 10,000 years. Understanding the ecological and demographic context in which the evolution of the social human brain took place is fundamental. An important component of the social brain project is to relate essentially demographic factors of social interactions (pair-bonding, group size etc.) to the cognitive processes that ultimately underpin them. In addition to the psychological component, these issues raise important questions about the nature of social relationships, finding intersection points with social psychology and social anthropology. Evidence for the social and cognitive developments occurring over the course of hominin evolution can be seen in material culture, which ultimately provides the best documented and temporally most continuous source of data on hominid behaviour and cognitive capacities. In addition, the creation and propagation of culture is a defining characteristic of the human condition, and the issue here is not simply the cognitive capacities that enable us to engage in particular kinds of social exchanges, but the role that culture (in its various manifestations) plays in welding groups of individuals together into functional societies.

The aim of this session is to explore the unique perspective that archaeology can bring to questions about the emergence of the ‘social brain’. This approach is supported by contributions from a wide range of disciplines, such as Psychology, Philosophy, Sociology, Geography, Anthropology and Biological Sciences, and this session welcomes papers that will ensure discussion of a broad range of ideas drawing from any combinations of these - from theoretical views of material culture through the medium of identity perpetuation to thoughts on the invisible emotions of the Palaeolithic. Together, this will ensure an engaging, interesting and theoretically relevant point of view on human evolution open to anyone with an interest in this genus.