Belfer-Cohen Anna, Hovers Erella
The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States.
Front Psychol. 2020 Jan 21;10:3063. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03063. eCollection 2019.
Social "connectivity" through time is currently considered as one of the major drivers of cultural transmission and cultural evolution. Within this framework, the interactions within and between groups are impacted by individuals' distinction of social relationships. In this paper, we focus on changes in a major aspect of social perceptions, "other" and "stranger." As inferred from the archaeological record, this perception among human groups gained importance during the course of the Pleistocene. These changes would have occurred due to the plasticity of cognitive mechanisms, in response to the demands on behavior along the trajectory of human social evolution. The concepts of "other" and "stranger" have received little attention in the archaeological discourse, yet they are fundamental in the perception of social standing. The property of being an "other" is defined by one's perception and is inherent to one's view of the world around oneself; when shared by a group it becomes a social cognitive construct. Allocating an individual the status of a "stranger" is a socially-defined state that is potentially transient. We hypothesize that, while possibly entrenched in deep evolutionary origins, the latter is a relatively late addition to socio-cognitive categorization, associated with increased sedentism, larger groups and reduced territorial extent as part of the process of Neolithization. We posit that "others" and "strangers" can be approached from contextual archaeological data, with inferences as regards the evolution of cognitive social categories. Our analysis focused on raw material studies, observations on style, and evidence for craft specialization. We find that contrary to the null hypothesis the archaeological record implies earlier emergence of complex socio-cognitive categorization. The cognitive, cultural and social processes involved in the maintenance and distinction between "others" and "strangers" can be defined as "self-domestication" that is still an on-going process.
随着时间推移的社会“连通性”目前被视为文化传播和文化进化的主要驱动力之一。在此框架内，群体内部和群体之间的互动受到个体对社会关系区分的影响。在本文中，我们关注社会认知一个主要方面“他者”和“陌生人”的变化。从考古记录推断，人类群体之间的这种认知在更新世过程中变得愈发重要。这些变化可能是由于认知机制的可塑性，以应对人类社会进化轨迹上对行为的要求。“他者”和“陌生人”的概念在考古论述中很少受到关注，但它们在社会地位认知中至关重要。“他者”的属性由个人认知定义，是个人对自身周围世界看法所固有的；当被一个群体共享时，它就成为一种社会认知结构。将一个人归为“陌生人”的身份是一种社会定义的状态，可能是暂时的。我们假设，虽然后者可能深深扎根于进化起源，但它是社会认知分类中相对较晚出现的，与新石器化过程中定居程度增加、群体规模扩大和领土范围缩小相关。我们认为，可以从背景考古数据入手研究“他者”和“陌生人”，并推断认知社会类别的演变。我们的分析集中在原材料研究、风格观察以及工艺专业化证据上。我们发现，与零假设相反，考古记录表明复杂社会认知分类出现得更早。“他者”和“陌生人”的维持与区分所涉及的认知、文化和社会过程可被定义为仍在进行中的“自我驯化”。
