Thomas G. Wynn 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. He taught at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs from 1977 to 2022, where he now holds the title Distinguished Professor Emeritus.
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 the change in form of stone tools; the work was ultimately published as a book, The Evolution of Spatial Competence, in 1989.
Research Over the course of his archaeological career, Wynn has worked on the evolutionary development of working memory, expert technical cognition, pre-symbolic aesthetic cognition, and spatial cognition, and he has deepened the understanding of the Palaeolithic record and the cognitive implications of handaxe manufacture and use. Beyond being one of cognitive archaeology's early research pioneers, Wynn has provided epistemological and methodological leadership to the field. In the 1970s and 1980s, Wynn worked on archaeological projects in Europe and Africa, directing the first systematic archaeological field work in the Mbeya Region of Tanzania in 1976 and 1980. To date, he has published over 150 articles, chapters, and books in Palaeolithic studies, with a particular emphasis on cognitive evolution. With his colleague, psychologist Frederick L. Coolidge, Wynn 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. With Coolidge and cognitive archaeologist Karenleigh A. Overmann, Wynn has written about the cognitive differences between Neandertals and contemporary Homo sapiens and the implications for Neandertal extinction. In 2011, Wynn and Coolidge established the Center for Cognitive Archaeology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. 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. Entitled "First Sculpture", the exhibit was mounted at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, in 2018 and published as a volume the same year. 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.
Honors In 2008, Wynn was awarded funding to organize the 139th Numbered Wenner-Gren Symposium, which Coolidge co-chaired. Entitled "Working Memory: Beyond Language and Symbolism," the proceedings were published as a special issue of Current Anthropology. In 2014, Wynn was appointed University of Colorado Distinguished Professor in recognition of his contributions to cognitive archaeology.
Selected works
Authored books Wynn, Thomas (1989). The Evolution of Spatial Competence. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252060304. Wynn, Thomas; Coolidge, Frederick L. (2012). How to Think like a Neandertal. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199742820. Berlant, Tony; Wynn, Thomas (2018). First Sculpture: Handaxe to Figure Stone. Nasher Sculpture Center. ISBN 9780991233878. Coolidge, Frederick L.; Wynn, Thomas (2018). The Rise of Homo sapiens: The Evolution of Modern Thinking (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190680916. Wynn, Thomas; Coolidge, Frederick L. (2022). An Introduction to Evolutionary Cognitive Archaeology. Routledge. ISBN 9780367856953.
Edited volumes De Beaune, Sophie A.; Coolidge, Frederick L.; Wynn, Thomas, eds. (2009). Cognitive Archaeology and Human Evolution. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521769778. Wynn, Thomas; Coolidge, Frederick L., eds. (2017). Cognitive Models in Palaeolithic Archaeology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190204112. Wynn, Thomas; Overmann, Karenleigh A.; Coolidge, Frederick L., eds. (2024). The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Archaeology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192895950.
Special journal issues Wynn, Thomas; Coolidge, Frederick L., eds. (2010). "Working Memory: Beyond Symbolism and Language". Current Anthropology. Wenner-Gren Symposium Series. 51 (S1). University of Chicago Press. Wynn, Thomas; Overmann, Karenleigh A.; Malafouris, Lambros, eds. (2021). "4E Cognition in the Lower Palaeolithic". Adaptive Behavior. 29 (2).
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