A sense of Direction: Spatial Boundaries in a Cognitive, Cultural and Deep Time Perspective

TY - JOUR

T1 - A sense of Direction:

T2 - Spatial Boundaries in a Cognitive, Cultural and Deep Time Perspective

AU - Løvschal, Mette

AU - Skewes, Joshua

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - This brief note points toward new potentials that lie at the interface between research on landscape archaeology and cognitive science. Recent advances in the cognitive and neural sciences have sharpened our understanding of spatial cognition, by providing new explanations for how the brain reduces the dimensionality of complex topography and geography for effective navigation. This research suggests that space is represented in grid-like structures in the brain, and that grid-like forms are a basic ingredient of spatial processing. At the same time, recent archaeological research shows that the organization of larger-scale space into linear forms, and in particular grid-like landscapes, is a relatively recent social invention, which suggests that these forms are historically and culturally contingent. Taken together, this research raises the question of how the dimensionality-reducing function of grid-like processing in the brain is related to higher-level conceptual and imaginative processing of space needed to plan and negotiate large-scale landscape structures. This brief note motivates this question and argues for further exploration of the relationships between biological, cognitive, and cultural processes related to space and its conceptualization between these fields of research.

AB - This brief note points toward new potentials that lie at the interface between research on landscape archaeology and cognitive science. Recent advances in the cognitive and neural sciences have sharpened our understanding of spatial cognition, by providing new explanations for how the brain reduces the dimensionality of complex topography and geography for effective navigation. This research suggests that space is represented in grid-like structures in the brain, and that grid-like forms are a basic ingredient of spatial processing. At the same time, recent archaeological research shows that the organization of larger-scale space into linear forms, and in particular grid-like landscapes, is a relatively recent social invention, which suggests that these forms are historically and culturally contingent. Taken together, this research raises the question of how the dimensionality-reducing function of grid-like processing in the brain is related to higher-level conceptual and imaginative processing of space needed to plan and negotiate large-scale landscape structures. This brief note motivates this question and argues for further exploration of the relationships between biological, cognitive, and cultural processes related to space and its conceptualization between these fields of research.

KW - boundaries

KW - grid cells

KW - landscape archaeology

KW - map distortion

KW - navigation

KW - spatial cognition

U2 - 10.1080/1751696X.2022.2115312

DO - 10.1080/1751696X.2022.2115312

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 36411776

SN - 1751-696X

VL - 15

SP - 255

EP - 260

JO - Time & Mind

JF - Time & Mind

IS - 2

ER -