The main research focus of our lab is on understanding what makes human cognition unique, and how and when these differences developed during our evolution. In particular we explore the factors and the pre-historical beginnings that enabled humans to develop cumulative culture.
We explore this topic by studying non-human animals (mainly great apes), modern human adults and children and by examining the archaeological record for behavioural and material traces of early hominins. By applying a diverse set of methodological approaches, we combine insights from developmental psychology, evolutionary biology, evolutionary archaeology, behavioural ecology and biological anthropology to provide insight into the evolution of our cognition.
Through broadening the scope of species examined, extending findings into our evolutionary past and by developing research paradigms that can be applied non-linguistically, we aim to probe the origins of cumulative culture in human ontogeny and phylogeny, as well as the distribution of cumulative culture across the animal kingdom.