Mission

The mission of the Center for Cognitive Archaeology (CCA) is to provide graduate and undergraduate students at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS) and throughout the world the opportunity to study the evolutionary development of cognition in humans and other primates through the lenses of psychology, anthropology, and philosophy.

Cognitive archaeology is a truly interdisciplinary field that applies the theories and methods of several academic domains (cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, archaeology, linguistics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of consciousness, etc.) to the tangible evidence for human evolution—non-human primate anatomy and behavior, human neuroanatomy, hominin paleontology, and archaeology.

It studies the origins and adaptive purposes of such cognitive processes and capabilities as concept formation, spatial cognition, social cognition, language, symbolic structures, and working memory.

The Center for Cognitive Archaeology is uniquely positioned to provide cutting-edge research and the opportunity for students to enroll in unique courses online and on the UCCS campus that are unavailable at any other institution in the world—Courses such as paleoneurology, rock art, embodied cognition, neuroanthropology, and others.

Executive Directors: Frederick L. Coolidge and Thomas Wynn

Board of Directors: Frederick L. Coolidge, Thomas Wynn, Karenleigh A. Overmann, Klint Janulis, & Alexander Aston