Aesthetic activity and human evolution: an interdisciplinary approach

The interdisciplinary study of human aesthetics and evolution is an active field of research. With advances in evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, and neurosciences (especially cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology), research topics that bridge these sciences and human (broadly conceived) aesthetic ideas have received much of our attention. This can be seen in studies of evolutionary aesthetics and neuroaesthetics, both of which have provided valuable insights into the relationship between aesthetic activities and our evolutionary past and the neural substrates of cognition. This thesis, however, aims to provide an interdisciplinary approach that sees the aesthetic as an organismic phenomenon which can only be fully appreciated through a better understanding of the structure of the continuous dynamics between organisms’ behaviours and their ecosphere. More specifically, this thesis develops a contextualist framework for aesthetic activities which is based on an extended conception of evolution. Furthermore, based on a case study of the Acheulean handaxe industry, this framework provides us a better understanding of the emergence of the earliest aesthetic culture of the human lineage. To do this, this thesis will draw on various sources of other disciplines—evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, niche construction, and Palaeolithic archaeology—to articulate an integrative evolutionary mechanism that is behind the aesthetic world.
Though this thesis cannot provide a fully satisfactory answer for how human aesthetics as a whole works, it may help in directing us towards this answer.