Session: #888

Content:

There is more to perception than meets the eye, literally. Although sight in many ways has been the preferred object of study for our understanding of how perception is shaped, our eyes are only one of the elements involved in the enactive process through which we experience the world we live in as a landscape of objects and opportunities for action. It is the engagement of an agent with its world, instantiated by the joint dynamic of the mind, body and environment, which constitutes and explains perception.
With this in mind, studying the duality of material culture and cognition in landscape archaeology holds great potential for uncovering patterns of thought in societies. The cognitive theory of Active Inference describes action and perception as an integrated process through which agents “infer” (and produce) their niche, given the prior knowledge about their world which is encoded in their own internal dynamics. This provides us with a powerful theoretical tool to relate the human actions we trace in a landscape to subjective patterns of perception and the underlying structures that guide the thought of society. Mind and action converge in the landscape. At the same time, it is necessary to recognise that the encounter between cognition and materiality is always historical. The temporally implied element of the historical, not merely contextual, existence of social relations is important.
This workshop consists of a keynote to frame the topic, followed by presentations and a round table of invited speakers for discussion. Participants are invited to present their own research and the implications of the study of perception in landscape. Ultimately, the aim is to build a common understanding of the convergence between theoretical neuroscience and archeological practice, oriented toward the collaborative construction of novel methodologies and new support networks for future research.

Session: #888

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