Naissance de la pensée symbolique chez l’Homme : étude des bases neurales de la perception des gravures paléolithiques abstraites et des visages culturalisés en neuroimagerie fonctionnelle

Abstract

Archaeological discoveries describing the first abstract engravings and ornamentations of the body, through objects of adornment and the use of pigments, suggest that the use of signs and/or symbols is not limited to Homo sapiens. From a neuro-archaeological perspective, our study aims to infer the neural bases required for the emergence of these first potentially symbolic types of behaviour. We used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to record participants' brain activity when we presented them with stimuli from potentially symbolic cultural innovations. These were schematic versions and photographs of early Palaeolithic engravings, followed by faces that were culturally ornamented with wooden beads and red paint strokes. Their perception involved associative visual brain areas. The salience network was mobilized to attribute a human origin to abstract patterns and a social status to ornamented faces. The latter also involved frontal regions belonging to the "social brain". My work suggests that the neural bases that not only enable relevant elements of the environment to be selected in order to recognize intentional productions of others, but also probably culturally determined meaning to be attached to these productions, were already functional in the Middle Palaeolithic, in the context of an increasingly complex social organization.

Keywords

• neuroarchaeology
• visual perception
• cognitive evolution
• culturized body