Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, South Africa.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2020 Aug 17;375(1805):20190424. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0424. Epub 2020 Jul 29.
There is a large, if disparate, body of archaeological literature discussing specific instantiations of symbolic material culture and the possibility of ritual practices in Neanderthal populations. Despite this attention, however, no single synthesis exists that draws upon cognitive, psychological and cultural evolutionary theories of ritual. Here, we review the evidence for ritual-practice among now-extinct , as well as the necessary cognitive pre-conditions for such behaviour, in order to explore the evolution of ritual in . We suggest that the currently available archaeological evidence indicates that Neanderthals may have used 'ritualization' to increase the successful transmission of technical knowledge across generations-providing an explanation for the technological stability of the Middle Palaeolithic and attesting to a survival strategy differing from near-contemporary . This article is part of the theme issue 'Ritual renaissance: new insights into the most human of behaviours'.
有大量的考古学文献探讨了特定实例的象征物质文化以及尼安德特人群体中仪式实践的可能性。然而，尽管有这些关注，却没有一个综合的研究能够借鉴仪式的认知、心理和文化进化理论。在这里，我们回顾了已灭绝的尼安德特人中仪式行为的证据，以及这种行为的必要认知前提，以便探索仪式在人类中的进化。我们认为，目前可用的考古证据表明，尼安德特人可能已经使用“仪式化”来增加技术知识在代际间的成功传播——这为中石器时代技术的稳定性提供了一个解释，并证明了一种与近当代人类不同的生存策略。本文是主题为“仪式复兴：对最具人类行为的新见解”的一部分。
