The origins of the cognition, behavior, and culture that characterize our species have preoccupied diverse fields such as philosophy, history, and biology for a long time. With the rise of Paleolithic archaeology and Paleoanthropology in the 19th and 20th century, questions on what makes us human and how and when this happened coalesced into a disciplinary agenda grounded in empirical data from deep time. Today we know that our biological origins stretch back to between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago in Africa (Hublin et al., Reference Hublin, Ben-Ncer, Bailey, Freidline, Neubauer, Skinner and Gunz2017; Vidal et al., Reference Vidal, Lane, Asrat, Barfod, Mark, Tomlinson and Oppenheimer2022). Models on the mode, tempo, and places for the behavioral and cognitive evolution of Homo sapiens in archaeology have changed markedly and remain contested: From an Upper Paleolithic revolution in Europe (Mellars & Stringer, Reference Mellars and Stringer1989) to an earlier and gradual accumulation in Africa (McBrearty & Brooks, Reference McBrearty and Brooks2000) or a mosaic evolution on this continent (Scerri & Will, Reference Scerri and Will2023) and beyond (Conard, Reference Conard, Henke and Tattersall2015). One central conviction has remained unchanged, however: The pivotal role of past material culture to understand these processes.

The thought-provoking article by Stibbard-Hawkes provides a different angle on this issue from the ethnography of contemporary hunter-gatherers, questioning the validity of links between cognitive capacities and material culture. The critical assessment of his findings regarding the use of archaeological materials to trace cognitive traits or mental revolutions in the deep past is a welcome addition to all relevant fields. The article rightly puts its finger on the weak spots of archaeological data – taphonomy, underdetermination, equifinality, absence of evidence – and overtly cognitive interpretations. While potentially off-putting for some archaeologists, I view the contribution as a wake-up call and constructive challenge; a welcome reminder to check our interpretations and biases. Too often have scholars drawn straightforward connections between material culture and specific measures of cognitive capacities or behavioral complexity – me included. The article showcases the value of ethnographic data for framing our inferences and considering multiple, alternative interpretations which can guide the study of Pleistocene humans closer along relevant and testable hypotheses.

What I want to assess more closely are the ramifications of this work for archaeology that could be seen as paralyzing and incentive to abandon this research direction altogether. Yet, we don't need less archaeological study of our behavioral and cognitive evolution but more, set in a wider temporal and taxonomic framework. The archaeological record in the form of artifacts and other material traces remains the principle empirical source for inferences on behavior, culture, and cognition in the past, spanning many hundreds of thousands of years and different species of Homo. It is less fragmentary compared to the paleoanthropological record that provides complementary information on the related evolution of our brains and bodies in the Pleistocene. While biological evolution continued since the origin of our species (e.g., Harvati & Reyes-Centeno, Reference Harvati and Reyes-Centeno2022; Mirazón Lahr, Reference Mirazón Lahr2016), culture and behavior undergo the most dramatic changes with lasting influences on our cognition via increasing material engagement and bio-cultural feedback (Hussain & Will, Reference Hussain and Will2021; Laland, Odling-Smee, & Myles, Reference Laland, Odling-Smee and Myles2010; Malafouris, Reference Malafouris2013). Even more reason to study the diverse and vast Pleistocene archaeological record of our species and other hominins.

To unravel long-term, evolutionary processes, of which our brains, behavior, and culture are part, we require relevant diachronic data, the more the better. It is not just “standard archaeology” in the forms of excavating, collecting, and analyzing objects of the past but also “squeezing blood from stones” (Isaac, Reference Isaac and Wright1977) and other materials by employing the full battery of approaches from zoology, material sciences, botany, paleogenetics, proteomics, and so on. In a second step, taking up Stibbard-Hawkes criticisms and following the method of multiple working hypotheses (see Chamberlin, Reference Chamberlin1890), the resulting multidisciplinary patterns on our past require a more careful construction of bridging theories and testing potential connections to cognition against other domains such as functional, cultural, ecological, or demographic variables both within but also across species of Homo. Predecessors on which such future work can build already exist (e.g., Coolidge, Haidle, Lombard, & Wynn, Reference Coolidge, Haidle, Lombard and Wynn2016; Haidle, Reference Haidle2014). Changing our basic assumptions on what the absence of specific material traces means may also help, as Stibbard-Hawkes points out. Here I find Haidle's (Reference Haidle2016) distinction between performances and capacities most helpful: Reflections of behavioral performances are empirically traceable, whereas present cognitive capacities might remain unexpressed and archaeologically invisible. This resonates to a large degree with the presented findings on recent hunter-gatherers.

For practitioners in the field, much of the above may seem trivial. Considering the large and diverse readership of this journal, however, it requires reiteration that archaeology retains a central role to study the behavioral and cognitive evolution of Homo sapiens and their relatives with its unique diachronic and inter-species framework throughout ~3 million years. Too often, perspectives from outside the field with passing knowledge of the complex and unwieldy archaeological record have provided distorted portrays of human origins that gained considerable traction, also with the public (e.g., Harari, Reference Harari2014). Furthermore, arguing mostly from the present human brain, its psychology or specific cultural patterns downplay and undervalue the long, contingent evolutionary pathways that led us to where we are now. To arrive at a holistic picture, we need evidence from the past and present, combining “neontological” and “paleontological” approaches.

Stibbard-Hawkes flags the many challenges that await such a massive endeavor, and this “just” from the perspective of hunter-gatherer ethnography. I don't have a simple answer to all the issues posed by this important contribution, and I assume many archaeological readers may have a similar uneasy feeling, particularly where absence of evidence is concerned. The wrong reaction would be to lay down our arms and look towards other fields that will resume study in these directions. As a starting point, archaeologists should continue cultivating an open, critical, and multidisciplinary mindset to pursue research into the behavioral and cognitive evolution of our species in a multi-species, diachronic framework of multiple, testable working hypotheses. Promoting genuine collaboration with other relevant fields will also ensure that empirical data of the deep past assumes its privileged role in the study of human origins in science and the public.