57 Symbolic Material Culture in the Late Pleistocene symbolic material Culture in the Late Pleistocene: use in Prehistory, appearance in the archaeological record and Taphonomy miCheLLe C. LanGLey Introduction People all over the world use material culture to transmit information about themselves to observers every day. his was no exception in the past. At some point in human prehistory, either owing to changes in the environment, population densities or some other cause, the cognition and behaviour of modern human populations in africa, and perhaps neanderthals in eurasia, developed and changed so that artefacts were invested with abstract meanings and symbolic values for the irst time in human prehistory (Mithen 1996), rather than being manufactured solely for utilitarian pur- poses (Bisson 2001). When this ability to use material culture to transmit information developed in human evolution is a topic that has been heatedly debated (e.g. Bouzouggar, Barton, Vanhaeren et al. 2007, Brumm, Moore 2005, Conard 2008, d’Errico 2003, Henshilwood, Marean 2003, Henshil- wood, d’Errico, Vanhaeren et al. 2004, Henshilwood 2007, Klein 2000, Mellars 2005, Wadley 2001). hrough focusing on four speciic material culture categories − body ornamentation, hunting weaponry, mobiliary art and rock art – this paper will not only outline how symbolic material cul- ture may have been used during the late Pleistocene by human communities but also highlight the problems associated in interpreting their presence (and absence) from the archaeological record. Use in Prehistory symbolic behaviour is “the ability to represent objects, people, and abstract concepts with arbitrary symbols, vocal or visual, and to reify such symbols in cultural practice” (McBrearty, Brooks 2000: 492). A key char- acteristic of all symbol use is that their meaning is assigned by arbitrary, socially-constructed conven- tions (Chase, dibble 1987), allowing the storage and display of information external to the human brain (Donald 1991, Henshilwood, Marean 2003, Hovers, Ilani, Bar-Yosef et al. 2003, Wadley 2001). artefacts which are commonly believed to represent symbolic behaviour in the archaeologi- cal record include: regional artefact styles, body ornamentation such as beads and pigments or the modiication of the body itself (e.g. cultural cranial deformation, piercings, tattoos), notched and incised items (bone, egg shell, ochre, stone, antler etc), ritual burials, mobiliary art and rock art (Ambrose 1998, Chase, Dibble 1990, Deacon 2001, d’Errico, Henshilwood, Vanhaeren et al. 2005, Klein 1995, McBrearty, Brooks 2000, Mellars 1989a, 1989b, 2005, Renfrew 1996, hackeray 1992). hese artefacts and features when found in the archaeological record relect not only the ability of