237 Thinking a Bowandarrow Set Thinking a Bow-and-arrow Set: Cognitive Implications of Middle Stone Age Bow and Stone-tipped Arrow Technology Marlize Lombard & Miriam Noël Haidle For various reasons increased efort has recently been made to detect the early use of mechanically-projected weaponry in the archaeological record, but litle efort has yet been made to investigate explicitly what these tool sets could indicate about human cognitive evolution. Based on recent evidence for the use of bow-and-arrow technology during the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa by 64 kya, we use the method of generating and analysing cognigrams and efective chains to explore thought-and-action sequences associated with this technology. We show that, when isolated, neither the production of a simple bow, nor that of a stone-tipped arrow, can be reasonably interpreted to indicate tool behaviour that is cognitively more complex than the composite artefacts produced by Neanderthals or archaic modern Homo. On the other hand, as soon as a bow-and-arrow set is used as an efective group of tools, a novel cognitive development is expressed in technological symbiosis, i.e. the ability to conceptualize a set of separate, yet inter-dependent tools. Such complementary tool sets are able to unleash new properties of a tool, inconceivable without the active, simultaneous manipulation of another tool. Consequently, lexibility regarding decision-making and taking action is ampliied. The archaeological evidence for such ampliied conceptual and technological modularization implies a range of cognitive and behavioural complexity and lexibility that is basic to human behaviour today. Our aim here is to explore the thinking pro cesses involved in the production and use of bows and arrows, and to investigate potential cognitive differences between bowandarrow technology (there is presently no reliable evidence for the use of spearthrowers in subSaharan Africa), and hand delivered spear technology. It is therefore necessary to clarify our choice of terminology. Many archaeolo gists outside the debate indiscriminately use the term projectile points for most pointed stone artefacts, regardless of ultimate use or mode of delivery. Some use projectile for weapons either thrown by hand or launched with devices (Knecht 1997), whereas others prefer to use the term exclusively for weapons launched with intermediate tools such as bows or spearthrowers (Brooks et al. 2006; Lombard & Phillip son 2010). As research focus changes it is increasingly There is an intensiied efort to detect the early use of bows andor spearthrowers in the archaeological record of subSaharan Africa (Backwell et al. 2008; Lombard 2008; 2011; Lombard & Pargeter 2008; Shea 2006; Sisk & Shea 2009; Wadley & Mohapi 2008), where humans evolved into anatomical, behavioural and cognitive modernity. This trend hinges on research agendas that aim to trace back in time complex tech nologies and behaviours (Brooks et al. 2006; Lombard & Parsons 2011; Lombard & Phillipson 2010; Wadley et al. 2009), or highlight diferences andor similarities between Neanderthals and early anatomically mod ern humans (Shea & Sisk 2010; Villa & Soriano 2010). Despite this emphasis, litle or no atempt has been made to explain the potential cognitive implications of mechanicallyprojected weaponry. This article is a step towards such discussion. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 22:2, 23764  2012 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research doi:10.1017S095977431200025X Received 19 May 2011; Accepted 9 Sep 2011; Revised 15 Dec 2011