Archaeologiques of sight: The visual world fosters the engagement between doing, seeing, and thinking

• Published in: Journal of anthropological archaeology 2024-03, Vol.73, p.101568, Article 101568
• Main Authors: Criado-Boado, Felipe, Martínez, Luis M., Blanco, Manuel J., Alonso-Pablos, Diego, Verdonkschot, Jadranka
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cognitive archaeology; Eye-tracking analysis; Material culture; Perceptive behaviour; Prehistoric pottery; Visual perception
• ISSN: 0278-4165; 1090-2686
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101568

•How visual statistics of the world explain the cognitive apprehension of materiality A positive interaction between cognition and a materialised human world•Examination of theoretical and interpretive implications of ETA analysis of the visual response to prehistoric pottery•Cognitive and physiological results as proof for coevolution between cognitive processes, materialities and social complexity•A positive interaction between cognition and a materialised human world•The human visual cognition system actively internalizes the observed, showing a perceptual coupling The paper examines how materializations of human practices relate to human cognition and to socio-cultural contexts. By combining evidence on the relationship between material culture and perceptual behaviour, we aim to understand the interactions between the mind, objects, and the world. The research is based on data regarding the visual perception of prehistoric pottery that was analyzed using Eye-Tracking techniques in a way that has not been applied previously to archaeological material culture. The datasets come from Galicia (NW Iberian Peninsula) and range from the Middle Neolithic until the end of the Iron Age (6000–200 BP). They belong to very different contexts that comprise a long-term history through diverse socio-cultural formations. A rigorous methodology makes it possible to unveil cross- and intra-cultural patterns of visual response to materiality, while avoiding presentism and subjective bias. The results provide new insights into the agency of material culture, which contribute to our understanding of the relationship between the mind and the material world, and account for the transitive engagement between the way of thinking, seeing, and making things.