Cognitive Archaeology; in Search of Materiality of the Mind

The paper concerns with definition, review of origins and evolution of subject matters as well as theoretical frameworks in cognitive archaeology. Basic literature of cognitive archaeology reviewed within the principal epistemological movements in archaeology dialectically to be classified according to their special mindsets. Theoretical frameworks underlying different subject matters in cognitive archaeology explained within two categories of mentalist and materialist views of culture and main constructive elements of current theory of cognitive archaeology and material engagement theory, were set apart and discussed through a case study of material culture of ancient Neo-Assyrian civilization. An investigation of Assyrian clay cones through material engagement theory showed that a considerable part of status and character of the Assyrian king within the cosmology of that ancient civilization could not be reduced to concepts and pure mental codes, but was formed, strengthened and reproduced actively through, with and on the basis of material conditions; so that clay cones should be called as materiality of Assyrian kingdom mentality. Cognitive archaeology on the basis of its primary and perpetual obsession with materiality could admirably possess a central stand in cognitive sciences, revealing materialized aspects of human cognition and materiality of the mind.