UCL - INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY
COURSE NUMBER: ARCLG183
Evolution of the Human Brain and Behaviour
2016
Masters Option: 15 credits
Lectures will be held 0900-1100 on Tuesdays in Room 612, the Institute of
Archaeology.
Co-ordinator: James Steele
j.steele@ucl.ac.uk
James Steele’s office hours for teaching-related matters during Term Two, 2016:
TUESDAYS, 1130-1300 (excluding Reading Week).
Please see the last page of this document for important information about
submission and marking procedures, and links to the relevant webpages.
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OVERVIEW
The purpose of this handbook
This handbook contains basic information about the content and administration of this course. If
you have queries about the objectives, structure, content, assessment or organisation of the course,
please consult the Course Co-ordinator. Further important information, relating to all courses at the
Institute of Archaeology, is to be found at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/handbook/common/ and
in the general MA/MSc handbook. It is your responsibility to read and act on it. It includes
information about originality, submission and grading of coursework; disabilities; communication;
attendance; and feedback.
Short course description
This course will examine the evidence for the evolution of the human brain, of social and technical
intelligence, and of the cognitive dimensions of cultural transmission. Students will assess the
evidence from a wide range of disciplines including not only archaeology and anthropology, but also
cognitive neuroscience and neuroanatomy, comparative and developmental psychology,
primatology and evolutionary biology, to investigate how and why human brains are adapted to a
culturally-constructed niche involving the learned use of (and dependence on) languages, artefacts,
and social norms. By the end of the course, students will be familiar with the strengths and
limitations of the different forms of evidence available for tracking the evolution of this distinctively
human adaptive strategy.
Course timetable
Twenty lectures, Tuesdays 9-11 pm, IoA 612:
Each week, the first period will be given over to discussion of the listed topic, which will have been
introduced by the lecturer in the second period of the previous week. Students should read the
essential readings listed under the relevant topic, and at least two other articles from that list, in
advance of the discussion period, and come prepared to contribute to the discussion.
Week 1: 12th January.
Brain energy metabolism and the evolution of diet
th
Social and ecological factors in primate brain evolution
Week 2: 19 January.
Week 3: 26 January.
Week 4: 2
Course overview.
th
nd
February.
th
Week 5: 9 February.
Landscape knowledge and the evolution of the foraging mind
The evolution of co-operation and social norms
First assignment due Friday 12th February
READING WEEK: 15th-19th February (NO TEACHING)
Week 6: 23rd February.
st
Week 7: 1 March.
th
Week 8: 8 March.
th
Week 9: 15 March.
Early technology, skill and inventiveness
The evolution of language and speech
Cognition, consciousness, and the ‘human revolution’
Dynamics of cultural evolution
Second assignment due Friday 18th March
Week 10: 22nd March.
What is special about the human brain?
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Core readings
There is no set course textbook. However, a number of books written for a broad scientific
readership cover some of the ground. Two of the more useful recent examples are:
Abramiuk, M. A. (2012). The Foundations of Cognitive Archaeology. MIT Press.
Passingham, R. (2008) What is Special about the Human Brain? Oxford: Oxford Uni. Press.
It is not essential to read these, but as single volume overviews they are better than many others
currently in print. Core readings (required and suggested) are listed below for each week’s topic,
and in order to gain an understanding of the core ideas of this course it is sufficient to read these.
To facilitate access, these recommendations are largely restricted to articles available online.
Methods of assessment
This course is assessed by means of ONE experimental critique and outline research design
(1,900-2,100 words), and ONE critique and redesign of a scientific infographic (critique: c.10001500 words, infographic: suitable for teaching a Masters-level class, either as a Powerpoint slide on
a screen, and as a reduced A4 colour handout, so must be legible even at that reduced scale), each
of which contribute 50% to the final grade for the course. The structure and deadlines for each
assessment are specified below. If students are unclear about the nature of an assignment, they
should contact the Course Co-ordinator. The Course Co-ordinator will be willing to discuss an
outline of their approach to the assessment, provided this is planned suitably in advance of the
submission date. Work which exceeds the stated word limit will be penalized.
Workload
There will be 20 hours of lectures and seminars for this course. There will also be up to four hours
of individual tuition/discussion of assessment topics offered to each student, to be timetabled
separately. Students will be expected to undertake around 100 hours of reading for the course, plus
60-70 hours preparing for and producing the assessed work. This should add up to a total workload
of 188 hours for the course.
Prerequisites
There are no formal prerequisites for this course, which is normally however only open to students
on Masters programmes hosted by the Department of Archaeology. Students who have taken the
new Anthropology unit ‘Evolution of Human Brain, Cognition and Language’ (ANTHGH08) may not
additionally take this course, due to duplication of coverage.
2. DETAILS OF COURSE AIMS, OBJECTIVES AND ASSESSMENT
Aims, objectives and learning outcomes
The aims of this course are to:
1) Undertake an in-depth study of biological, psychological and archaeological evidence
relating to the patterns and processes of evolution of the human brain and behaviour.
2) Examine the wide range of methods and theory applied to the question of the evolution of
the human brain and behaviour, and to consider possibilities for productive integration.
On successful completion of this course a student should have developed:
1) A detailed knowledge of biological, psychological and archaeological evidence of the
evolution of the human brain and behaviour.
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2) Enhanced written and oral skills in communicating complex ideas and data-sets derived from
a range of academic disciplines.
3) The ability to critically evaluate evidence and arguments regarding issues in the evolution of
the human brain and behaviour.
On successful completion of the course students should have further developed skills and abilities
in:
1) Assimilation and critical reflection on complex information
2) Evaluation and application of acquired knowledge
3) Oral and written communication
Assessments
Assignment 1: Write an experimental critique and a research design (1,800-2,200 words).
Deadline: Friday 12th February 2016
You are to critique an existing published experiment and design a new experiment, or a series of
experiments, that will shed new light on the evolution of human cognition. Your research design
must be original, although it is likely to build on previous work done by other investigators (you must
always indicate in what ways you are building on or testing others’ pre-existing work). You may
chose which aspect of human cognitive evolution you wish to investigate (for instance, you might
investigate some well-focused aspect of one of the following: brain energy metabolism and the
evolution of diet; the biological or cultural evolution of environmental knowledge, or of technical skill;
the biological or cultural evolution of social norms; the biological or cultural evolution of language).
You may choose your preferred methodology, but you are advised to restrict yourself to one
approach (for instance, lab experiments in social groups; brain imaging studies; computer
simulations; naturalistic behavioural observations with a suitable control condition; lab experiments
involving samples of individuals carrying out some specific task; etc.)
Your submission should include the following elements: a statement of the problem and its relevant
to human cognitive evolution; a review and critique of one or more of the most relevant existing
findings in the field; an explicit statement of the hypothesis that you wish to test; a description of the
materials and methods you will use to run your experiments and to analyse the results; and a
statement demonstrating your awareness of relevant UCL guidelines on research ethics.
Because of the potential breadth of research questions and research methodologies, there is no
single set of readings. Students may consult with the Course Co-ordinator to discuss their own
ideas about possible topics and approaches. For the development of a research design, a good
start would be to make a close reading of the ‘materials and methods’ sections of some recent
published experimental studies in the relevant sub-field, and consider how you might adapt those
methods to address your own research problem. UCL research ethics guidelines are available
online at: http://ethics.grad.ucl.ac.uk.
Assignment 2: Write a 1000-1500 word critique of three published visual displays of
quantitative information about some aspect of human brain evolution, and design a new
scientific infographic to address one of the same topics or a relevant related topic. Deadline:
Friday 18th March 2016
Your own design should be suitable for teaching a Masters-level class as a Powerpoint slide
projected onto a screen, and as a reduced A4 colour handout (so it must be legible even at that
reduced scale). You may chose any three existing infographics to critique. Some examples are
included at the end of this Handbook.
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The design of effective scientific infographics has its own literature, including some classic volumes
written by Edward Tufte (1983, 1990, 1997, 2006).
Tufte, E.R. (1983). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics
Press.
Tufte, E.R. (1990). Envisioning Information, Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press
Tufte, E.R. (1997). Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative.
Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press
Tufte, E.R. (2006) Beautiful Evidence. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press
There are also numerous websites that collate links to favourite examples, e.g.
http://vi.sualize.us/amira/infographics/
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/
http://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/
http://www.noupe.com/how-tos/creative-examples-of-infographics.html
https://www.pinterest.com/aswimm/science-infographics/
Advice
If students are unclear about the nature of an assignment, they should discuss this with the Course
Co-ordinator. The Course Co-ordinator is willing to discuss an outline of the student's approach to
the assignment, provided this is planned suitably in advance of the submission date. Students are
not permitted to re-write and re-submit assessed coursework after the submission deadline in order
to try to improve their marks.
Communication
If any changes need to be made to the course arrangements, these will normally be communicated
by email. It is therefore essential that you consult your UCL e-mail account regularly.
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ONLINE RESOURCES
The full UCL Institute of Archaeology coursework guidelines are given here:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/handbook/common/marking.htm.
The full text of this handbook is available here (includes clickable links to Moodle and online reading
lists if applicable) http://www.ucl.ac.uk/silva/archaeology/course-info/.
Moodle
The Moodle resources for this course can be found at
http://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/course/search.php?search=G183. The course handbook, and lecture notes
and extra references and resources as appropriate, will be available here for download.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Libraries and other resources
In addition to the Library of the Institute of Archaeology, another library in UCL with holdings of
particular relevance to this degree is the UCL Science Library.
Attendance
A register will be taken at each class. Regular attendance is expected. If you are unable to attend a
class, please notify the Course Co-ordinator by email. Departments are required to report each
student’s attendance to UCL Registry at frequent intervals throughout each term.
Information for intercollegiate and interdepartmental students
Students enrolled in Departments outside the Institute should collect hard copy of the Institute’s
coursework guidelines from Judy Medrington’s office.
Dyslexia
If you have dyslexia or any other disability, please make your lecturers aware of this. Please
discuss with your lecturers whether there is any way in which they can help you. Students with
dyslexia are reminded to indicate this on each piece of coursework.
Feedback
In trying to make this course as effective as possible, we welcome feedback from students during
the course of the year. All students are asked to give their views on the course in an anonymous
questionnaire which will be circulated at one of the last sessions of the course. These
questionnaires are taken seriously and help the Course Co-ordinator to develop the course. The
summarised responses are considered by the Institute's Staff-Student Consultative Committee,
Teaching Committee, and by the Faculty Teaching Committee.
If students are concerned about any aspect of this course we hope they will feel able to talk to the
Course Co-ordinator, but if they feel this is not appropriate, they should consult their Personal Tutor,
the Academic Administrator (Judy Medrington), or the Chair of Teaching Committee (Dr. Karen
Wright).
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5 CORE READINGS
Week 1: 12th January.
Course Introduction and Overview
Week 2: 19th January.
Brain energy metabolism and the evolution of diet
Essential for discussion class:
Aiello, L. C. & Wheeler, P. (1995). The expensive tissue hypothesis: the brain and digestive system
in human and primate evolution. Current Anthropology 36(2), 199-221.
Carmody, R.N. & Wrangham, R.W. (2009) The energetic significance of cooking. J Hum Evol
57:379–391
Isler, K., & van Schaik, C. P. (2012). How our ancestors broke through the gray ceiling. Current
Anthropology, 53(S6), S453-S465.
Navarrete, A., van Schaik, C.P. & Isler, K. (2011) Energetics and the evolution of human brain size.
Nature 480: 91–93.
Additional suggestions (read two or more for discussion class):
Aiello, L.C. and Wells, J.C.K., (2002). Energetics and the evolution of the genus Homo. Annual
Review of Anthropology 31(1 ), 323-338.
Beaumont PB (2011) The edge: More on fire-making by about 1.7 million years ago at Wonderwerk
Cave in South Africa. Current Anthropology 52(4): 585–595.
Brain, C. K. & Sillen, A. (1988). Evidence from the Swartkrans cave for the earliest use of fire.
Nature 336: 464–466.
Carmody, R., Weintraub, G. & Wrangham, R. (2011) Energetic consequences of thermal and
nonthermal food processing Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108: 19199-19203
Emery Thompson, M., 2013. Comparative reproductive energetics of human and nonhuman
primates. Annual Review of Anthropology, 42, pp.287-304.
Herculano-Houzel, S. (2011) Scaling of brain metabolism with a fixed energy budget per neuron:
Implications for neuronal activity, plasticity, and evolution. PLoS ONE 6(3): e17514.
Isler, K. & van Schaik, C.P. (2009). The Expensive Brain: a framework for explaining evolutionary
changes in brain size. Journal of Human Evolution 57, 392-400.
Isler, K., & Van Schaik, C. P. (2014). How humans evolved large brains: comparative evidence.
Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 23(2), 65-75.
Leonard, W.R., et al. (2007) Effects of brain evolution on human nutrition and metabolism. Annu
Rev Nutr. 27:311–327.
Martin, R.D. (1996). Scaling of the mammalian brain: the Maternal Energy Hypothesis. News in
Physiological Sciences 11(4), 149-156.
Organ, C., Nunn, C.L., Machanda, Z. & Wrangham, R.W. (2011) Phylogenetic rate shifts in feeding
time during the evolution of Homo. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108: 14555-14559
Pontzer, H., 2015. Energy Expenditure in Humans and Other Primates: A New Synthesis. Annual
Review of Anthropology, 44(1).
Pontzer, H., Raichlen, D.A., Gordon, A.D., Schroepfer-Walker, K.K., Hare, B., O’Neill, M.C.,
Muldoon, K.M., Dunsworth, H.M., Wood, B.M., Isler, K. and Burkart, J., 2014. Primate energy
expenditure and life history. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(4),
pp.1433-1437.
Robson, S.L. and Wood, B. (2008). Hominin life history: reconstruction and evolution. Journal of
Anatomy 212, 394-425.
Stiner, M.C. (2002). Carnivory, coevolution, and the geographic spread of the genus Homo. Journal
of Archaeological Research 10, 1-64.
Wrangham, R. & Carmody, R. (2010) Human adaptation to the control of fire. Evol. Anthropol. 19:
187–199.
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Week 3: 26th January.
Social and ecological factors in primate brain evolution
Essential for discussion class:
Dunbar, R.I.M. & Shultz, S. (2007). Evolution in the social brain. Science 317, 1344-1347
Herrmann, E., Call, J., Hernandez-Lloreda, M. V., Hare, B. & Tomasello, M. (2007). Humans have
evolved specialized skills of social cognition: The cultural intelligence hypothesis. Science
317:1360–66.
Kaplan, H., Hill, K., Lancaster, J., & Hurtado, A. M. (2000). A theory of human life history evolution:
diet, intelligence, and longevity. Evolutionary Anthropology Issues News and Reviews, 9(4),
156-185.
Reader, S. M., Hager, Y., & Laland, K. N. (2011). The evolution of primate general and cultural
intelligence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences,
366(1567), 1017-1027.
Additional suggestions (read two or more for discussion class):
Byrne, R. and Whiten, A. (1988). Machiavellian intelligence: social expertise and the evolution of
intellect in monkeys, apes and humans. Oxford: OUP.
Dean, L. G., Kendal, R. L., Schapiro, S. J., Thierry, B., & Laland, K. N. (2012). Identification of the
social and cognitive processes underlying human cumulative culture. Science, 335(6072),
1114-1118.
Deaner, R.O., Nunn, C.L. & van Schaik, C.P. (2000) Comparative tests of primate cognition:
different scaling methods produce different results. Brain Behav Evol 55:44–52.
Frith, C. (2008). Social cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363, 20332039.
Gibson, K.R. (1986). Cognition, brain size and the extraction of embedded food resources. In: J. G.
Else and P. C. Lee (eds.) Primate Ontogeny, Cognition and Social Behaviour. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 93-103.
Gowlett, J., Gamble, C. & Dunbar, R. (2012). Human evolution and the archaeology of the social
brain. Current Anthropology 53: 693-722.
Grueter, C. C. (2015). Home range overlap as a driver of intelligence in primates. American journal
of primatology, 77(4), 418-424.
Janson, C. H. & Byrne, R. (2007). What wild primates know about resources: opening up the black
box. Animal Cognition 10, 357-367.
MacLean, E. et al. (2012). How does cognition evolve? Phylogenetic comparative psychology.
Anim. Cogn. 15: 223–238.
MacLean, E.L., Hare, B., Nunn, C.L., ... & Boogert, N. J. (2014). The evolution of self-control.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(20), E2140-E2148.
Melin, A.D., Young, H.C., Mosdossy, K.N., & Fedigan, L. M. (2014). Seasonality, extractive foraging
and the evolution of primate sensorimotor intelligence. Journal of human evolution, 71, 77-86.
Milton, K. (1988). Foraging behaviour and the evolution of intellect in monkeys, apes and humans.
In: R.W. Byrne and A. Whiten (eds.) Machiavellian Intelligence, pp. 285-305. Oxford:
Clarendon Press
Parker, S.T. (2015) Re-evaluating the extractive foraging hypothesis. New Ideas in Psychology
37:1-12.
Roth, G. (2015). Convergent evolution of complex brains and high intelligence. Phil. Trans. R. Soc.
B, 370(1684), 20150049.
Shultz S., Nelson E., Dunbar R.I.M. (2012). Hominin cognitive evolution: identifying patterns and
processes in the fossil and archaeological record. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 367: 2130–2140.
Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T. & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and sharing
intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28:675–91.
van Schaik, C. P., & Burkart, J. M. (2011). Social learning and evolution: the cultural intelligence
hypothesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences,
366(1567), 1008-1016.
Whiten, A. & Byrne, R. W. (eds.) (1997). Machiavellian Intelligence II: extensions and evaluations.
Cambridge: CUP.
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Week 4: 2nd February.
Landscape knowledge and the foraging mind
Essential for discussion class:
Meltzer, D.J. (2003). Lessons in landscape learning. In: Rockman, M., Steele, J. (Eds.),
Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes: the Archaeology of Adaptation, pp. 222–241. London:
Routledge.
Potts, R., & Faith, J. T. (2015). Alternating high and low climate variability: The context of natural
selection and speciation in Plio-Pleistocene hominin evolution. Journal of human evolution,
87, 5-20.
van Woerden, J. T., Willems, E. P., van Schaik, C. P., & Isler, K. (2012). Large brains buffer
energetic effects of seasonal habitats in catarrhine primates. Evolution, 66(1), 191-199.
Zuberbühler, K. & Janmaat, K.R.L. (2010). Foraging cognition in non-human primates. In Platt, M.L.
& Ghazanfar, A.A. (eds.), Primate Neuroethology, pp. 64–83. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Additional suggestions (read two or more for discussion class):
Burke, A. (2010) Spatial abilities, cognition and the pattern of Neanderthal and modern human
dispersals. Quaternary International 247: 230-235.
Chalmers, R. (2000). Surf like a bushman. New Scientist, 168 (Nov. 11), p. 38.
De Lillo, C., Kirby, M., & James, F. C. (2013). Spatial working memory in immersive virtual reality
foraging: Path organization, traveling distance and search efficiency in humans (Homo
sapiens). American journal of primatology.
Duke, C. & Steele, J. (2010). Geology and lithic procurement in Upper Palaeolithic Europe: a
weights-of-evidence based GIS model of lithic resource potential. Journal of Archaeological
Science 37: 813-824.
Fagan, W. F., Lewis, M. A., Auger‐Méthé, M., Avgar, T., Benhamou, S., Breed, G., ... & Mueller, T.
(2013). Spatial memory and animal movement. Ecology letters, 16(10), 1316-1329.
Féblot‐Augustins, J. (2009). Revisiting European Upper Paleolithic raw material transfers: the
demise of the cultural ecological paradigm?. Lithic materials and Paleolithic societies, 25-46.
Freeman, J., & Anderies, J. M. (2015). The socioecology of hunter–gatherer territory size. Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology, 39, 110-123.
Garber, P. A., & Dolins, F. L. (2014). Primate spatial strategies and cognition: Introduction to this
special issue. American Journal of Primatology. doi: 10.1002/ajp.22257
Grove, M., Pearce, E. & Dunbar, R. (2012). Fission-fusion and the evolution of hominin social
systems. Journal of Human Evolution 62:191–200.
Grove, M.J. (2012). The evolution of spatial memory. Mathematical Biosciences.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mbs.2012.11.011
Josman, N., Kizony, R., Hof, E., Goldenberg, K., Weiss, P. L., & Klinger, E. (2013). using the virtual
action planning-supermarket for evaluating executive functions in people with stroke. Journal
of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases.
Janson, C. (2013). Death of the (traveling) salesman: Primates do not show clear evidence of
multi‐step route planning. American Journal of Primatology.
MacDonald, K., Smaers, J. B., & Steele, J. (2015). Hominin geographical range dynamics and
relative brain size: Do non-human primates provide a good analogy?. Journal of human
evolution, 87, 66-77.
Pearce, E. (2014). Modelling mechanisms of social network maintenance in hunter–gatherers.
Journal of archaeological science, 50, 403-413.
Pearce, E., & Moutsiou, T. (2014). Using obsidian transfer distances to explore social network
maintenance in late Pleistocene hunter–gatherers. Journal of anthropological archaeology, 36,
12-20.
Pirolli, P. and Card, S.K. (1999) Information foraging. Psychological Review 106(4) (pp. 643-675).
Rockman, M. (2003). Knowledge and learning in the archaeology of colonization. In M. Rockman &
J. Steele (eds). Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes: The archaeology of adaptation, pp. 3–
24. London: Routledge.
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Roebroeks, W., Kolen, J., & Rensink, E. (1988). Planning depth, anticipation and the organization of
Middle Palaeolithic technology: the archaic natives meet Eve's descendants. Helinium, 28(1),
17-34.
Salthouse, T. A., & Siedlecki, K. L. (2007). Efficiency of route selection as a function of adult age.
Brain and Cognition, 63(3), 279-286.
Schuppli, C., Isler, K., & Van Schaik, C.P. (2012). How to explain the unusually late age at skill
competence among humans. Journal of human evolution, 63(6), 843-850.
Turq, A., Roebroeks, W., Bourguignon, L., & Faivre, J. P. (2013). The fragmented character of
Middle Palaeolithic stone tool technology. Journal of human evolution, 65(5), 641-655.
Widlok, T. (1997). Orientation in the wild: The shared cognition of Hai//om Bush-people. Journal of
the Royal Anthropological Institute 3: 317-32.
Widlok, T. (2008) Landscape unbounded: space, place, and orientation in ≠Akhoe Hai//om and
beyond. Language Sciences 30: 362–380
Widlok, T. (2015). Moving between camps: Towards an integrative approach to forager mobility.
Hunter Gatherer Research, 1(4), 473-494.
Woerden, J. T., Schaik, C. P., & Isler, K. (2014). Brief Communication: Seasonality of diet
composition is related to brain size in New World Monkeys. American journal of physical
anthropology, 154(4), 628-632.
Woollett, K., & Maguire, E. A. (2011). Acquiring “the knowledge” of London's layout drives structural
brain changes. Current Biology, 21(24), 2109-2114.
Week 5: 9th February.
The evolution of co-operation and social norms
Essential for discussion class:
Enloe, J. G. (2003). Food sharing past and present: archaeological evidence for economic and
social interactions. Before Farming, 1(1), 1-23.
Isaac, G.L. (1978). Food sharing in human evolution: archaeological evidence from the PlioPleistocene of East Africa. J Anthropol Res 34: 311–325.
Jaeggi, A. V., & Gurven, M. (2013). Natural cooperators: Food sharing in humans and other
primates. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 22(4), 186-195.
Rand, D. G., & Nowak, M. A. (2013). Human cooperation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(8), 413.
Additional suggestions (read two or more for discussion class):
Adolphs R (1999) Social cognition and the human brain. Trends Cogn Sc, 3:469-479
Adolphs, R. (2009) The social brain: neural basis of social knowledge. Annu Rev Psychol 60: 693–
716.
Binford, L.R. (1985). Human ancestors: changing views of their behavior. J. Anthrop. Archaeol. 4:
292–327.
Bogin, B., Bragg, J., & Kuzawa, C. (2014). Humans are not cooperative breeders but practice
biocultural reproduction. Annals of human biology, 41(4), 368-380.
Boyd R., & Richerson P. J. (2009) Culture and the evolution of human cooperation. Phil. Trans. R.
Soc. B 364: 3281–3288.
Boyd, R., Schonmann, R. H., & Vicente, R. (2014). Hunter–gatherer population structure and the
evolution of contingent cooperation. Evolution and Human Behavior, 35(3), 219-227.
Burkart, J. M., Allon, O., Amici, F., Fichtel, C., Finkenwirth, C., Heschl, A., ... & Meulman, E. J.
(2014). The evolutionary origin of human hyper-cooperation. Nature communications, 5.
Burkart J.M., Hrdy S.B. & van Schaik, C. (2009). Cooperative breeding and human cognitive
evolution. Evol. Anthropol. 18, 175–186
Casebeer, W.D. (2003) Moral cognition and its neural constituents, Nature Reviews: Neuroscience
4: 840–846.
Cosmides, L. (1989) The logic of social exchange: has natural selection shaped how humans
reason? Studies with the Wason selection task. Cognition 31: 187–276.
Cosmides, L., Barrett, H.C. & Tooby, J. (2010). Adaptive specializations, social exchange, and the
evolution of human intelligence. PNAS 107: 9007–9014.
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Dyble, M., Salali, G. D., Chaudhary, N., Page, A., Smith, D., Thompson, J., ... & Migliano, A. B.
(2015). Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands.
Science, 348(6236), 796-798.
Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. (2004) Social norms and human cooperation. Trends Cognit Sci 8: 185–
190.
Goel, V., Shuren, J., Sheesley, L., & Grafman, J. (2004). Asymmetrical involvement of frontal lobes
in social reasoning. Brain, 127: 783-790.
Gurven M. (2004) To give and to give not: the behavioral ecology of human food transfers. Behav.
Brain Sci. 27, 543–583
Hill, K. (2002). Altruistic cooperation during foraging by the Ache, and the evolved human
predisposition to cooperate. Human Nature 13, 105–128.
Jaeggi, A. V., & Gurven, M. (2013). Reciprocity explains food sharing in humans and other primates
independent of kin selection and tolerated scrounging: a phylogenetic meta-analysis.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 280(1768).
Kaplan H. & Gurven M. (2005) The natural history of human food sharing and cooperation: a review
and a new multi-individual approach to the negotiation of norms. In Moral sentiments and
material interests: the foundations of cooperation in economic life (Gintis H., Bowles S., Boyd
R., Fehr E., eds. ), pp. 75–113 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Copy at:
www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/kaplangurven.pdf
Lewis, H. M., Vinicius, L., Strods, J., Mace, R., & Migliano, A. B. (2014). High mobility explains
demand sharing and enforced cooperation in egalitarian hunter-gatherers. Nat Commun, 5,
5789.
Melis, A.P., Hare, B. & Tomasello, M. (2006) Chimpanzees recruit the best collaborators. Science
311: 1297–1300.
Moll, J., Zahn, R., de Oliveira-Souza, R., Krueger, F. & Grafman, J. (2005) The neural basis of
human moral cognition. Nat Rev Neurosci. 6: 799–809.
Molleman, L., Quiñones, A. E., & Weissing, F. J. (2013). Cultural evolution of cooperation: the
interplay between forms of social learning and group selection. Evolution and Human
Behavior, 34(5), 342-349.
Reis, D.L., Brackett, M.A., Shamosh, N.A., Kiehl, K.A., Salovey, P. & Gray, J.R. (2007). Emotional
intelligence predicts individual differences in social exchange reasoning. Neuroimage 35:
1385–1391.
Tomasello, M., Melis, A. P., Tennie, C., Wyman, E., & Herrmann, E. (2012). Two key steps in the
evolution of human cooperation. Current Anthropology, 53(6), 673-692.
Tomasello, M., & Vaish, A. (2013). Origins of human cooperation and morality. Annual review of
psychology, 64, 231-255.
Week 6: 23rd February.
Early technology, skill and inventiveness
Essential for discussion class:
Bril, B., Smaers, J., Steele, J., Rein, R., Nonaka, T., Dietrich, G., Biryukova, L. & Roux, V. (2012)
Functional mastery of percussive technology in nut-cracking and stone-flaking: experimental
data and implications for the evolution of the human brain. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Series B
367: 59-74
Perreault, C., Brantingham, P. J., Kuhn, S. L., Wurz, S., & Gao, X. (2013). Measuring the complexity
of lithic technology. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/673264
Shea, J. J. (2013). Lithic Modes A–I: A new framework for describing global-scale variation in stone
tool technology illustrated with evidence from the East Mediterranean Levant. Journal of
Archaeological Method and Theory, 20(1), 151-186.
Vaesen K. (2012). The cognitive bases of human tool use. Behav. Brain Sci. 35, 203-218
Additional suggestions (read two or more for discussion class):
Ambrose, S, (2001). Paleolithic technology and human evolution. Science 291, 1748-1753.
11
Byrne, R. W. (2007). Culture in great apes: using intricate complexity in feeding skills to trace the
evolutionary origin of human technical prowess. Philosophical transactions of the Royal
Society of London Series B 362, pp. 577-585.
Foley, R. & Lahr, M.M. (2003). On stony ground: lithic technology, human evolution, and the
emergence of culture. Evolutionary Anthropology 12: 109-122
Isaac, G. Ll. (1986). Foundation stones: early artefacts as indicators of activities and abilities. In
G.N. Bailey and P. Callow (eds.) Stone Age Prehistory: Studies in honour of Charles
McBurney. London: Cambridge University Press, 221-41.
Hiscock, P. (2014). Learning in lithic landscapes: a reconsideration of the hominid “Toolmaking”
Niche. Biological Theory, 9(1), 27-41.
Kaplan, H. S., & Robson, A. J. (2002). The emergence of humans: The coevolution of intelligence
and longevity with intergenerational transfers. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 99(15), 10221-10226.
Johnson-Frey, S.H. (2004). The neural bases of complex tool use in humans. Trends in Cognitive
Sciences 8(2): 71-78
MacDonald K. (2007). Cross-cultural comparison of learning in human hunting. Implications for life
history evolution. Hum. Nat. 18, 386–402.
Roux, V. & Bril, B. (eds.), 2005. Stone knapping: the necessary conditions for a uniquely hominin
behaviour. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge.
Schick, K.D. & Toth, N. (1995). Making silent stones speak: human evolution and the dawn of
technology. London: Phoenix.
Schniter, E., Gurven, M., Kaplan, H. S., Wilcox, N. T., & Hooper, P. L. (2015). Skill ontogeny among
Tsimane forager‐horticulturalists. American journal of physical anthropology.
Stout, D., Hecht, E., Khreisheh, N., Bradley, B., & Chaminade, T. (2015). Cognitive Demands of
Lower Paleolithic Toolmaking. PLoS ONE, 10(4), e0121804.
Stout, D., & Khreisheh, N. (2015). Skill Learning and Human Brain Evolution: An Experimental
Approach. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 25(04), 867-875.
Stout, D., Toth, N., Schick, K.D. & Chaminade, T. (2008). Neural correlates of Early Stone Age
toolmaking: technology, language and cognition in human evolution. Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 363, 1939-1949.
de la Torre, I., & Hirata, S. (2015). Percussive technology in human evolution: a comparative
approach in fossil and living primates. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 370(1682), whole issue.
Tomasello, M. & Call, J. (1997). Primate Cognition. Oxford: OUP. Chapter 3.
Toth, N. and Schick, K. (eds.) (2006). The Oldowan : Case Studies into the Earliest Stone Age.
Stone Age Institute Press.
Whiten, A., Schick, K. & Toth, N. (2009 ). The evolution and cultural transmission of percussive
technology: integrating evidence from paleoanthropology and primatology. J. Hum. Evol. 57,
420–435.
Week 7: 1st March. The evolution of language and speech
Essential for discussion class:
Barney, A., Martelli, S., Serrurier, A. & Steele, J. (2012) Articulatory capacity of Neanderthals, a
very recent and human-like fossil hominin. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Series B 367: 88-102
Fitch, W., Huber, L., & Bugnyar, T. (2010). Social cognition and the evolution of language:
constructing cognitive phylogenies. Neuron, 65(6), 795-814.
Hauser, M.D., Chomsky, N. & Fitch, W.T. (2002). The faculty of language: what is it, who has it and
how did it evolve? Science 298, 1569-1579.
Hoffecker, J. (2007). Representation and recursion in the archaeological record. Journal of
Archaeological Method and Theory 14(4), 359-387.
Additional suggestions (read two or more for discussion class):
Ambrose, S.H. (2010) Coevolution of composite-tool technology, constructive memory, and
language: implications for the evolution of modern human behavior. Current Anthropology 51
(S1, Working Memory: Beyond Language and Symbolism), S135-S147.
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Christiansen, M.H. & Kirby, S. (2003). Language evolution: consensus and controversies. Trends in
Cognitive Science 7(7), 300-307.
Coolidge, F., Overmann, K., & Wynn, T. (2010) Recursion: what is it, who has it, and how did it
evolve? Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 2: 547–554.
Deacon, T.(1997). The Symbolic Species: the co-evolution of language and the human brain.
London: Allen Lane the Penguin Press.
Dibble, H. (1989). The implication of stone tool types for the presence of language during the Lower
and Middle Paleolithic. In (P. Mellars & C. B. Stringer, Eds) The Human Revolution:
Behavioral and Biological Perspectives on the Origins of Modern Humans, pp. 415–432.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Fitch, W.T. (2000). The evolution of speech: a comparative review. Trends in Cognitive Sciences
4(7): 258-267.
Fitch, W.T. (2010). The Evolution of Language. Cambridge University Press.
Greenfield, P.M. (1991) Language, tools and brain: The ontogeny and phylogeny of hierarchically
organized sequential behavior. Behav. Brain Sci. 14: 531-551.
Lieberman, P. (2007) The evolution of human speech: Its anatomical and neural bases. Curr
Anthropol 48:39–53.
Marcus, G. & Fisher, S.E. (2003). FOXP2 in focus: what can genes tell us about speech and
language? Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7(6), 257-262.
Morgan, T. J. H., Uomini, N. T., Rendell, L. E., Chouinard-Thuly, L., Street, S. E., Lewis, H. M., ... &
Whiten, A. (2015). Experimental evidence for the co-evolution of hominin tool-making teaching
and language. Nature communications, 6.
Pelegrin, J. (2009). Cognition and the emergence of language: a contribution from lithic technology.
In Cognitive Archaeology and Human Evolution, Edited by: de Beaune, S. A., Coolidge, F. L.
and Wynn, T. 95–108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pinker, S. & Jackendoff, R. (2005) What's special about the human language faculty? Cognition,
95(2), 201-236.
Steele, J., Ferrari, P.-F., & Fogassi, L. (eds) (2012) From action to language: comparative
perspectives on primate tool use, gesture and the evolution of human language. Phil. Trans.
R. Soc. B 367 (1585): 4-160.
Steele,J. & Uomini,N. (2009). Can the archaeology of manual specialization tell us anything about
language evolution? A survey of the state of play. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19, 97110.
Stout D. & Chaminade T. (2012). Stone tools, language and the brain in human evolution. Philos.
Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 367, 75–87
Wadley, L., Hodgskiss, T. & Grant, M. (2009). Implications for complex cognition from the hafting of
tools with compound adhesives in the Middle Stone Age, South Africa. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Science 106 (24): 9590-9594.
Week 8: 8th March. Cognition, consciousness, and the ‘human revolution’
Essential for discussion class:
d'Errico, F. (2003). The invisible frontier. A multiple species model for the origin of behavioral
modernity. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 12(4), 188-202.
McBrearty, S., & Brooks, A. S. (2000). The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of the origin
of modern human behavior. Journal of human evolution, 39(5), 453-563.
Mellars, P. (2005). The impossible coincidence. A single‐species model for the origins of modern
human behavior in Europe. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 14(1),
12-27.
Powell, A., Shennan, S. & Thomas, M. (2009) Late Pleistocene demography and the appearance of
modern human behavior. Science 324:1298–1301.
Additional suggestions (read two or more for discussion class):
Arbib, M. A. (2001). Co‐evolution of human consciousness and language. Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences, 929(1), 195-220.
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Baumeister, R. F., Masicampo, E. J., & Vohs, K. D. (2011). Do conscious thoughts cause
behavior? Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 331-361.
d'Errico, F., & Stringer, C. B. (2011). Evolution, revolution or saltation scenario for the emergence of
modern cultures? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences,
366(1567), 1060-1069.
Henshilwood, C. S., & Marean, C. W. (2003). The origin of modern human behavior. Current
Anthropology, 44(5), 627-651.
Hill, K. R., Wood, B. M., Baggio, J., Hurtado, A. M., & Boyd, R. T. (2013). Hunter-gatherer interband interaction rates: implications for cumulative culture. PloS one, 9(7), e102806e102806.
Hoffecker, J. F. (2005). Innovation and technological knowledge in the Upper Paleolithic of northern
Eurasia. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 14(5), 186-198.
Nowell, A. (2010). Defining behavioral modernity in the context of Neandertal and anatomically
modern human populations. Annual Review of Anthropology, 39, 437-452.
Shea, J.J. (2011). Homo sapiens is as Homo sapiens was. Current Anthropology 52: 1-35.
Straus, L. G. (2012). The emergence of modern-like forager capacities & behaviors in Africa and
Europe: Abrupt or gradual, biological or demographic?. Quaternary International, 247, 350357.
Vaesen, K. (2012) Cumulative cultural evolution and demography. PLoS ONE 7(7): e40989.
Vanhaeren, M., & d'Errico, F. (2006). Aurignacian ethno-linguistic geography of Europe revealed by
personal ornaments. Journal of Archaeological Science, 33(8), 1105-1128.
Villa, P., & Roebroeks, W. (2014). Neandertal demise: an archaeological analysis of the modern
human superiority complex. PloS one, 9(4), e96424.
Ziegler, M., Simon, M. H., Hall, I. R., Barker, S., Stringer, C., & Zahn, R. (2013). Development of
Middle Stone Age innovation linked to rapid climate change. Nature communications, 4,
1905.
Week 9: 15th March. Dynamics of cultural evolution
Essential for discussion class:
Caldwell, C. A., & Millen, A. E. (2008). Studying cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 363(1509), 35293539.
Tehrani, J. J., & Riede, F. (2008). Towards an archaeology of pedagogy: learning, teaching and the
generation of material culture traditions. World Archaeology, 40(3), 316-331.
van Schaik, C. P., & Burkart, J. M. (2011). Social learning and evolution: the cultural intelligence
hypothesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences,
366(1567), 1008-1016.
Whiten, A. (2011). The scope of culture in chimpanzees, humans and ancestral apes. Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 997-1007.
Additional suggestions (read two or more for discussion class):
Aoki, K. (2015). Modeling abrupt cultural regime shifts during the Palaeolithic and Stone Age.
Theoretical population biology, 100, 6-12.
Backwell, L., & d’Errico, F. (2005). The origin of bone tool technology and the identification of early
hominid cultural traditions. d’Errico, F. & Backwell, L. (eds.) From Tools to Symbols: From
Early Hominids to Modern Humans, pp. 238-275. Wits University Press, Johannesburg.
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Boyd, R., Richerson, P.J. and Henrich, J. (2011) The cultural niche: Why social learning is essential
for human adaptation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 108:
10918–10925
Tennie, C., Braun, D. R., & McPherron, S. P. (2015). The island test for cumulative culture in
Paleolithic cultures. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology.
Derex, M., Beugin, M. P., Godelle, B., & Raymond, M. (2013). Experimental evidence for the
influence of group size on cultural complexity. Nature, 503(7476), 389-391.
Derex, M., & Boyd, R. (2015). The foundations of the human cultural niche. Nature communications,
6.
d'Errico, F., & Banks, W. E. (2015). The Archaeology of Teaching: A Conceptual Framework.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 25(04), 859-866.
Heyes, C. (2012). Grist and mills: on the cultural origins of cultural learning. Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1599), 2181-2191.
Kline, M. A. (2014). How to learn about teaching: An evolutionary framework for the study of
teaching behavior in humans and other animals. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1-70.
Kolodny, O., Creanza, N., & Feldman, M. W. (2015). Evolution in leaps: The punctuated
accumulation and loss of cultural innovations. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 112(49), E6762-E6769.
Lewis, H.M. & Laland, K.N. (2012). Transmission fidelity is the key to the build-up of cumulative
culture. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 367: 2171–2180.
Lycett, S. J. (2011). “Most beautiful and most wonderful”: Those endless stone tool forms. Journal of
Evolutionary Psychology, 9(2), 143-171.
Lyons, D. E., Damrosch, D. H., Lin, J. K., Macris, D. M., & Keil, F. C. (2011). The scope and limits of
overimitation in the transmission of artefact culture. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 1158-1167.
McNabb, J., Binyon, F., & Hazelwood, L. (2004). The large cutting tools from the South African
Acheulean and the question of social traditions. Current Anthropology, 45(5), 653-677.
Mesoudi, A. & Whiten, A. (2004) The hierarchical transformation of event knowledge in human
cultural transmission. Journal of Cognition and Culture 4: 1–24.
Muthukrishna, M., Shulman, B. W., Vasilescu, V., & Henrich, J. (2014). Sociality influences cultural
complexity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 281(1774), 20132511.
Querbes A, Vaesen K, Houkes W (2014) Complexity and Demographic Explanations of Cumulative
Culture. PLoS ONE 9(7): e102543.
Schiffer, M. B. (2005). The devil is in the details: The cascade model of invention processes.
American Antiquity, 485-502.
Shea, N. (2012). New thinking, innateness and inherited representation. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 367,
2234–2244.
Shennan, S.J. & Steele, J. (1999). Cultural learning in hominids: A behavioural ecological approach.
In H. O. Box & K. R. Gibson (Eds.), Mammalian social learning: Comparative ecological
perspectives (pp. 367–388). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Toelch, U., Bruce, M. J., Newson, L., Richerson, P. J., & Reader, S. M. (2014). Individual
consistency and flexibility in human social information use. Proceedings of the Royal Society
B: Biological Sciences, 281(1776), 20132864.
Van Peer, P. (1991). Interassemblage variability and Levallois styles: the case of the Northern
African Middle Palaeolithic. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 10(2), 107-151.
Vegvari, C., & Foley, R. A. (2014). High selection pressure promotes increase in cumulative
adaptive culture. PloS one, 9(1), e86406.
Week 10: 22nd March. What is special about the human brain?
Essential for discussion class:
Rilling, J. K. (2014). Comparative primate neuroimaging: insights into human brain evolution. Trends
in Cognitive Sciences, 18(1), 46-55.
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Sherwood, C.C., Suniaul, F. & Zawidzki, T. W. (2008). A natural history of the human mind: tracing
evolutionary changes in brain and cognition. Journal of Anatomy 212, 426-454.
Zollikofer, C. P. E., & León, M. S. P. (2013). Pandora's growing box: Inferring the evolution and
development of hominin brains from endocasts. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News,
and Reviews, 22(1), 20-33.
Additional suggestions (read two or more for discussion class):
Barton, R. A., & Venditti, C. (2014). Rapid evolution of the cerebellum in humans and other great
apes. Current Biology, 24(20), 2440-2444.
Buckner, R. L., & Krienen, F. M. (2013). The evolution of distributed association networks in the
human brain. Trends in cognitive sciences, 17(12), 648-665.
Herculano-Houzel, S. (2012) The remarkable, yet not extraordinary, human brain as a scaled-up
primate brain and its associated cost. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109(Suppl. 1):10661–10668.
Hrvoj-Mihic, B., Bienvenu, T., Stefanacci, L., Muotri, A. R., & Semendeferi, K. (2013). Evolution,
development, and plasticity of the human brain: from molecules to bones. Frontiers in
human neuroscience, 7.
Langbroek, M. (2012). Trees and ladders: A critique of the theory of human cognitive and
behavioural evolution in Palaeolithic archaeology. Quaternary International, 270, 4-14.
Neubauer, S. & Hublin, J.-J. (2012) The evolution of human brain development. Evol Biol,
10.1007/s11692-011-9156-1.
Pinker S. (2010) The cognitive niche: coevolution of intelligence, sociality, and language. Proc. Natl
Acad. Sci. USA 107(Suppl. 2): 8993–8999.
Preuss, T.M. (2011) The human brain: Rewired and running hot. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1225(Suppl
1):E182–E191.
Rilling J.K. (2006). Human and nonhuman primate brains: are they allometrically scaled versions of
the same design? Evol. Anthropol. 15: 65–77.
Smaers, J. B., Steele, J., & Zilles, K. (2011). Modeling the evolution of cortico‐cerebellar systems in
primates. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1225(1), 176-190.
Smaers, J. B., Steele, J., Case, C. R. and Amunts, K. (2013), Laterality and the evolution of the
prefronto-cerebellar system in anthropoids. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,
1288: 59–69.
Somel, M., Liu, X., & Khaitovich, P. (2013). Human brain evolution: transcripts, metabolites and their
regulators. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14(2), 112-127.
de Sousa, A.A. & Wood, B.A. (2007). The hominin fossil record and the emergence of the modern
human central nervous system. In: The Evolution of Primate Nervous Systems. Evolution of
Nervous Systems, Vol. 4, T.M. Preuss, J.H. Kaas (eds), Academic Press: Oxford. pp.291336.
Various authors (2010) Working Memory: Beyond Language and Symbolism [special issue] Current
Anthropology 51, S1 :S1-S199
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APPENDIX A: POLICIES AND PROCEDURES 2015-16 (PLEASE READ CAREFULLY)
This appendix provides a short précis of policies and procedures relating to courses. It is not a substitute for
the full documentation, with which all students should become familiar. For full information on Institute policies
and procedures, see the following website: http://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/display/archadmin For UCL policies and
procedures, see the Academic Regulations and the UCL Academic Manual:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/srs/academic-regulations ; http://www.ucl.ac.uk/academic-manual/
GENERAL MATTERS
ATTENDANCE: A minimum attendance of 70% is required. A register will be taken at each class. If you are
unable to attend a class, please notify the lecturer by email.
DYSLEXIA: If you have dyslexia or any other disability, please discuss with your lecturers whether there is
any way in which they can help you. Students with dyslexia should indicate it on each coursework cover
sheet.
COURSEWORK
SUBMISSION PROCEDURES: You must submit a hardcopy of coursework to the Co-ordinator's pigeonhole via the Red Essay Box at Reception (or, in the case of first year undergraduate work, to room 411a) by
stated deadlines. Coursework must be stapled to a completed coversheet (available from IoA website; the
rack outside Room 411A; or the Library). You should put your Candidate Number (a 5 digit alphanumeric
code, found on Portico. Please note that this number changes each year) and Course Code on all
coursework. It is also essential that you put your Candidate Number at the start of the title line on Turnitin,
followed by the short title of the coursework (example: YBPR6 Funerary practices).
LATE SUBMISSION: Late submission is penalized in accordance with UCL regulations, unless permission for
late submission has been granted. The penalties are as follows: i) A penalty of 5 percentage marks should be
applied to coursework submitted the calendar day after the deadline (calendar day 1); ii) A penalty of 15
percentage marks should be applied to coursework submitted on calendar day 2 after the deadline through to
calendar day 7; iii) A mark of zero should be recorded for coursework submitted on calendar day 8 after the
deadline through to the end of the second week of third term. Nevertheless, the assessment will be
considered to be complete provided the coursework contains material than can be assessed; iv) Coursework
submitted after the end of the second week of third term will not be marked and the assessment will be
incomplete.
GRANTING OF EXTENSIONS: New UCL-wide regulations with regard to the granting of extensions for
coursework have been introduced with effect from the 2015-16 session. Full details will be circulated to all
students and will be made available on the IoA intranet. Note that Course Coordinators are no longer
permitted to grant extensions. All requests for extensions must be submitted on a new UCL form, together
with supporting documentation, via Judy Medrington’s office and will then be referred on for consideration.
Please be aware that the grounds that are now acceptable are limited. Those with long-term difficulties
should contact UCL Student Support and Wellbeing to make special arrangements.
TURNITIN: Date-stamping is via Turnitin, so in addition to submitting hard copy, you must also submit your
work to Turnitin by midnight on the deadline day. If you have questions or problems with Turnitin, contact ioaturnitin@ucl.ac.uk. The course ID for Turnitin is 2971044 and the password for all classes this academic year
is: IoA1516 (N.B. the middle 'o' is lower case).
RETURN OF COURSEWORK AND RESUBMISSION: You should receive your marked coursework within
four calendar weeks of the submission deadline. If you do not receive your work within this period, or a written
explanation, notify the Academic Administrator. When your marked essay is returned to you, return it to the
Course Co-ordinator within two weeks. You must retain a copy of all coursework submitted.
WORD LENGTH: Essay word-lengths are normally expressed in terms of a recommended range. Not
included in the word count are the bibliography, appendices, tables, graphs, captions to figures, tables,
graphs. You must indicate word length (minus exclusions) on the cover sheet. Exceeding the maximum wordlength expressed for the essay will be penalized in accordance with UCL penalties for over-length work.
CITING OF SOURCES and AVOIDING PLAGIARISM: Coursework must be expressed in your own words,
citing the exact source (author, date and page number; website address if applicable) of any ideas,
information, diagrams, etc., that are taken from the work of others. This applies to all media (books, articles,
websites, images, figures, etc.). Any direct quotations from the work of others must be indicated as such by
being placed between quotation marks. Plagiarism is a very serious irregularity, which can carry heavy
penalties. It is your responsibility to abide by requirements for presentation, referencing and avoidance of
plagiarism. Make sure you understand definitions of plagiarism and the procedures and penalties as detailed
in UCL regulations: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/current-students/guidelines/plagiarism
MOODLE: Please ensure you are signed up to the course on Moodle. For help with Moodle, please contact
Judy Medrington (email j.medrington@ucl.ac.uk), Room 411a.
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