Material Agency, Skills and History: Distributed Cognition and the Archaeology of Memory

If cognition is distributed as well as embodied, then explanation in cognitive science must often highlight more or less transient extended systems spanning embodied brains, social networks or resources and key parts of the natural and the cultural world. These key parts of material culture are not simply cues which trigger the truly cognitive apparatus inside the head but instead form ‘‘a continuous part of the machinery itself’’, as ‘‘systemic components the interaction of which brings forth the cognitive process in question’’ (Malafouris, 2004:58). On this view, cognitive science is thus not just the study of the brain: indeed, even neuroscience cannot be the study of the brain alone, for brains coupled with external resources may have unique functional and dynamical characteristics apparent only when we also attend to the nature of those resources and the peculiarities of the interaction. This chapter argues that if cognition is indeed thus distributed, then cognition is also historical and heterogeneous and must also be analysed diachronically and differentially. If mind is extended, that is to say, then historical cognitive sciences are essential to the interdisciplinary enterprise. This is not just because individual brains themselves are ‘‘biosocial organs permeated by history’’ (Cowley, 2002:75) but also on the longer scale because of dramatic historical diversity in the nature, properties and use of cognitive artefacts. According to Andy Clark, ‘‘the single most important task’’ for ‘‘a science of the bio-technological mind’’ is to understand ‘‘the range and variety of types of cognitive scaffolding and the different ways in which non-biological scaffolding can augment (or impair) performance’’ (Clark, 2002:29, my italics). Unique historical and cultural features of human beings extended cognitive make-up are thus not accidental extras added to a basic biologically givenmind. Rather, such changing media, objects, routines, institutions and practices have