Biography:Thomas G. Wynn

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Short description: American archaeologist

Thomas G. Wynn, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, is an American archaeologist known for his work in cognitive archaeology. He is a pioneer of evolutionary cognitive archaeology; his article "The intelligence of later Acheulean hominids" (Man, 1979) is considered a classic in the field.[1][2][3] He taught at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs from 1977 to 2022.[4]

Education

Wynn completed his doctorate in anthropology in 1977 at the University of Illinois, Urbana under the supervision of anthropologist Charles M. Keller. The project used Piagetian psychological theory to document cognitive evolution as represented in change in the form of stone tools; the work was ultimately published as a book, The Evolution of Spatial Competence, in 1989.[5]

Research

In the 1970s and 1980s, Wynn worked archaeological projects in Europe and Africa, directing the first systematic archaeological field work in the Mbeya Region of Tanzania in 1976 and 1980.[4] To date, he has published over 150 articles, chapters, and books in Palaeolithic studies, with a particular emphasis on cognitive evolution.[4]

With his colleague Frederick L. Coolidge, Wynn has developed the Enhanced Working Memory Hypothesis (EWMH), which proposes that a small but heritable change in executive functioning may have been the reason why Homo sapiens persisted and flourished, while cousin species like the Neandertals went extinct.[6][7][8][9][10] With his colleagues Frederick L. Coolidge and Karenleigh A. Overmann, Wynn has written about the cognitive differences between Neandertals and contemporary Homo sapiens and the implications for Neandertal extinction.[11][12]

In 2011, Wynn and his colleague, psychologist Frederick L. Coolidge, established the Center for Cognitive Archaeology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.[4] In 2013, Wynn began working with LA artist Tony Berlant on an exhibition of Acheulean handaxes that celebrated their importance in the evolution of aesthetic sensibility.[13][14] Entitled "First Sculpture", the exhibit was mounted at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, in 2018 and published as a volume the same year.[15][16][17][18][19] Wynn and Berlant continued to collaborate on Mimbres painting, with an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and associated publication in 2018.[20]

Honors

In 2008, Wynn was awarded funding to organize the 139th Numbered Wenner-Gren Symposium, which was co-chaired by psychologist Frederick L. Coolidge. Entitled "Working Memory: Beyond Language and Symbolism," the proceedings were published as a special issue of Current Anthropology.[21]

In 2014, Wynn was appointed University of Colorado Distinguished Professor in recognition of his contributions to cognitive archaeology.[4][22]

Selected works

Articles

  • Wynn, Thomas, "The Intelligence of Later Acheulean Hominids," Man, vol. 14 (1979): 371–391.
  • Wynn, Thomas, "The Intelligence of Oldowan Hominids," Journal of Human Evolution, vol. 10, no. 7 (1981): 529–541.
  • Wynn, Thomas, and William C. McGrew, "An Ape's View of the Oldowan," Man, vol. 24, no. 3 (1989): 383–398.
  • Wynn, Thomas, "Two Developments in the Mind of Early Homo," Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, vol. 12, no. 3 (1993): 299–322.
  • Wynn, Thomas, "Handaxe Enigmas," World Archaeology, vol. 27, no. 1 (1995): 10–24.
  • Wynn, Thomas, "Archaeology and Cognitive Evolution," Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 25, no. 3 (2002): 389–402.
  • Wynn, Thomas, and Frederick L. Coolidge, "The Role of Working Memory in the Evolution of Managed Foraging," Before Farming, vol. 2, no. 1 (2003): 1–16.
  • Wynn, Thomas, and Frederick L. Coolidge, "The Expert Neandertal Mind," Journal of Human Evolution, vol. 46, no. 4 (2004): 467–487.
  • Wynn, Thomas, and Frederick L. Coolidge, "Why Not Cognition?" Current Anthropology, vol. 49, no. 5 (2008): 895–897.
  • Wynn, Thomas, "Hafted Spears and the Archaeology of Mind," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 106, no. 24 (2009): 9544–9545.
  • Wynn, Thomas, and Frederick L. Coolidge, "Beyond Symbolism and Language: An Introduction to Supplement 1, Working Memory," Current Anthropology, vol. 51, no. S1 (2010): S5–S16.
  • Wynn, Thomas, R. Adriana Hernandez-Aguilar, Linda F. Marchant, and William C. McGrew, "'An Ape's View of the Oldowan' Revisited," Evolutionary Anthropology, vol. 20, no. 5 (2011): 181–197.
  • Wynn, Thomas, and Frederick L. Coolidge, "Archaeological Insights into Hominin Cognitive Evolution," Evolutionary Anthropology, vol. 25, no. 4 (2016): 200–213.
  • Wynn, Thomas, and John Gowlett, "The Handaxe Reconsidered," Evolutionary Anthropology, vol. 27, no. 1 (2018): 21–29.
  • Wynn, Thomas, "Ergonomic Clusters and Displaced Affordances in Early Lithic Technology," Adaptive Behavior, vol. 29, no. 2 (2020): 181–195.

Authored books

  • Wynn, Thomas, The Evolution of Spatial Competence, University of Illinois Press (1989).
  • Coolidge, Frederick L., and Thomas Wynn, The Rise of Homo sapiens: The Evolution of Modern Thinking, Routledge (2009).
  • Wynn, Thomas, and Frederick L. Coolidge, How to Think like a Neandertal, Oxford University Press (2012).
  • Berlant, Tony, and Thomas Wynn, First Sculpture: Handaxe to Figure Stone, Nasher Sculpture Center (2018).
  • Coolidge, Frederick L., and Thomas Wynn, The Rise of Homo sapiens: The Evolution of Modern Thinking, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press (2018).
  • Wynn, Thomas, and Frederick L. Coolidge, An Introduction to Evolutionary Cognitive Archaeology, Routledge (2022).

Edited volumes

  • De Beaune, Sophie A., Frederick L. Coolidge, and Thomas Wynn (editors), Cognitive Archaeology and Human Evolution, Cambridge University Press (2009).
  • Wynn, Thomas, and Frederick L. Coolidge (editors), Working Memory: Beyond Symbolism and Language, Wenner-Gren Symposium Series, University of Chicago Press (2010).
  • Wynn, Thomas, and Frederick L. Coolidge (editors), Cognitive Models in Palaeolithic Archaeology, Oxford University Press (2017).
  • Wynn, Thomas, Karenleigh A. Overmann, and Frederick L. Coolidge (editors), The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Archaeology, Oxford University Press (2023).

References

  1. ↑ Wynn, Thomas (1979). "The Intelligence of Later Acheulean Hominids". Man 14 (3): 371–391. doi:10.2307/2801865. 
  2. ↑ Overmann, Karenleigh A; Coolidge, Frederick L (2019). "Cognitive Archaeology at the Crossroads". Squeezing Minds from Stones: Cognitive Archaeology and the Evolution of the Human Mind. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 1–12. ISBN 9780190854614. 
  3. ↑ Tryon, Christian (2013). "Testing Models of Modern Human Origins with Archaeology and Anatomy". Nature Education Knowledge 4 (3): 4. https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/testing-models-of-modern-human-origins-with-96639156. Retrieved 20 February 2021. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "Thomas Wynn, Ph.D.". University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. https://anthropology.uccs.edu/thomas-wynn. 
  5. ↑ Wynn, Thomas (1989). The Evolution of Spatial Competence. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252060304. 
  6. ↑ Coolidge, Frederick L; Wynn, Thomas (2001). "Executive Functions of the Frontal Lobes and the Evolutionary Ascendancy of Homo sapiens". Cambridge Archaeological Journal 11 (3): 255–260. doi:10.1017/S0959774301000142. 
  7. ↑ Coolidge, Frederick L; Wynn, Thomas (2005). "Working Memory, Its Executive Functions, and the Emergence of Modern Thinking". Cambridge Archaeological Journal 15 (1): 5–26. doi:10.1017/S0959774305000016. http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/CMPL/article/view/58479. 
  8. ↑ Balter, Michael (2010). "Does 'Working Memory' Still Work?". Science 328 (5975): 162. doi:10.1126/science.328.5975.162. PMID 20378789. https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.328.5975.162?casa_token=SWHvAVnL-J4AAAAA%3AppPXdeTrD_nSSTuYk4GCBMVpZRW0uwEUg6grUjgsTitt41fNgTMeTF9diiFQZupy6xSkzzDlEHDccA. Retrieved 20 February 2021. 
  9. ↑ Balter, Michael (2019). "Did Working Memory Spark Creative Culture?". http://naturedocumentaries.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/WorkingMemory_Balter.pdf. 
  10. ↑ Wurz, Sarah (2012). "The Transition to Modern Behavior". Nature Education Knowledge 3 (10): 15. https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-transition-to-modern-behavior-86614339/. Retrieved 20 February 2021. 
  11. ↑ Wynn, Thomas; Overmann, Karenleigh A; Coolidge, Frederick L (2016). "The false dichotomy: A refutation of the Neandertal indistinguishability claim". Journal of Anthropological Sciences 94 (94): 201–221. doi:10.4436/jass.94022. PMID 26708102. 
  12. ↑ Bower, Bruce (2004). "In the Neandertal Mind: Our Evolutionary Comrades Celebrated Vaunted Intellects before Meeting a Memorable Demise". Science News 166 (12): 183–184. doi:10.2307/4015497. https://doi.org/10.2307/4015497. Retrieved 20 February 2021. 
  13. ↑ "The Oldest Drawing in the World Has Been Discovered—But Is It Art?". 2018. https://www.apollo-magazine.com/the-oldest-drawing-in-the-world-has-been-discovered-but-is-it-art/. 
  14. ↑ "Thomas Wynn: Aesthetics Before Art: Antecedents of the Artistic Mind (TED Talk)". 2017. https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_wynn_aesthetics_before_art_antecedents_of_the_artistic_mind. 
  15. ↑ Berlant, Tony; Wynn, Thomas (2018). First Sculpture: Handaxe to Figure Stone. Dallas, TX: Nasher Sculpture Center. ISBN 9780991233878. 
  16. ↑ "First Sculpture: Handaxe to Figure Stone at the Nasher". 2018. https://glasstire.com/2018/02/26/first-sculpture-handaxe-to-figure-stone-at-the-nasher/. 
  17. ↑ "Art This Week interviews Tony Berlant and Thomas Wynn". 2018. http://artthisweek.com/art-week-first-sculpture-handaxe-figure-stone-tony-berlant-dr-thomas-wynn-interview. 
  18. ↑ Farago, Jason (2018). "Was Australopithecus an Artist?". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/arts/design/nasher-sculpture-center-dallas-first-sculpture-review.html. 
  19. ↑ "Thomas Wynn interview on "First Sculpture" exhibit, The Modern Art Notes Podcast, Episode no. 330". 2018. https://modernartnotespodcast.libsyn.com/jill-magid-thomas-wynn-on-first-sculpture. 
  20. ↑ Berlant, Tony; Maurer, Evan; Burtenshaw, Julia; Wynn, Thomas (2018). Decoding Mimbres Painting. Los Angeles: LA County Museum of Art. ISBN 9783791357430. 
  21. ↑ Wynn, Thomas; Coolidge, Frederick L (2010). "Working Memory: Beyond Symbolism and Language". Current Anthropology 51 (S1). doi:10.1086/650526. 
  22. ↑ "Wynn joins ranks of CU distinguished professors". University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. November 20, 2014. https://communique.uccs.edu/?p=17175. 

External links

See also




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