FROM BONES TO BELIEFS: AN ANALYSIS OF EVIDENTIAL REASONING IN PALEOANTHROPOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY

This dissertation investigates evidential reasoning in paleoanthropology and Paleolithic archaeology. More specifically, it analyzes the inferential processes through which fragmentary traces, mostly bones, tools and sediments, are transformed into claims about our evolutionary past. The first chapter examines the debate on Homo naledi’s alleged burials, with a particular emphasis on the notion of “evidential standards”. It provides a characterization of this notion, and it is shown that in the case of naledi, the debate concerns not so much what these standards are, but how they should be interpreted. The second chapter addresses variability in Paleolithic burial practices, showing how this phenomenon has tangible consequences on how we define burials and how we identify them in the archaeological record. The third chapter analyzes the use of null hypotheses in cognitive archaeology, suggesting that importing statistical tools into non-experimental contexts produces heuristic nulls that suffer from problems of testability. Inference to the best explanation is offered as a better alternative. The final chapter explores the integration between evolutionary psychology and paleoanthropology, showing how the heuristics of hypothesis generation of the former should be informed and constrained by the data of the latter. Overall, the thesis advances a philosophical account of how knowledge about human evolution is built from fragmentary traces, highlighting both the potentialities and limitations of this process. It concludes by outlining some directions for future inquiry.