MERLIN
DONALD
Professor Emeritus at Queen’s University in Kingston, ON, Canada
Cognitive evolution:
IMPLICATIONS FOR DEVELOPING A
CREATIVE MINDSET
Cognitive evolution:
Implications for developing
a creative mindset
Merlin Donald
The study of cognitive evolution reveals a great deal about human nature.
Human evolutionary prehistory suggests strongly that our
species was highly skilled long before it was articulate. Our
ancient ancestors survived and prospered due to their capacity
to refine tools, and especially, their ability to make the
master toolkit – the toolkit that was used to manufacture
other tools from softer substances. The sharpest and hardest
substances available in the Stone Age were flint and obsidian,
and Acheulian tools made from these two materials have been
dated back to approximately 1.8 million and 1 million years
ago, respectively.
Manufactured things and environments constitute the basis of
what is known as material culture. Material culture surrounds us,
serving as our virtual cognitive ecology. All human beings must
adapt to the specific material culture in which they are born.
Modern material culture includes electronic gadgets and the
internet, among other things, but the process of creating, and
adapting to material culture started long ago, in evolutionary
events that occurred during the Old Stone Age.
With flint and obsidian, ancient humans were able to make an
assortment of tools from materials such as wood, hide, and
bone: diggers, spears, tethers, simple clothing, and eventually,
shelters and boats. But how could they manufacture a
master toolkit from such hard substances as flint and obsidian, if
nothing else in nature was sharp enough to cut and shape
them? That is exactly the key question – it was not easy! It
takes a modern anthropologist several weeks of training to
learn how to do this, and yet, our distant ancestors were doing
it nearly 2 million years ago.
It is important to realize that although the neuropsychological
foundation of toolmaking may appear to lie in better visualmanual coordination (which is partly true), it involves much
more than the hands. In fact, this remarkable ability, when
it first appeared, signalled major changes to executive brain
systems located at the top of the primate cognitive pyramid.
EVOLUTIONARY ROOTS OF FANTASY PLAY:
THE MIMETIC IMAGINATION
The most important consequence of this change was the
appearance of what I call the “mimetic imagination,” which
evolved at the top of the primate mental hierarchy, and is the
basis of the ability to rehearse skills. Practicing a skill demands
the capacity to assess a previous performance, imagine an
idealized outcome (this is the mimetic imagination at work),
and then improve the next performance, assessing progress,
over and over again, until the result is closer to the ideal.
Athletes can imagine their perfect performance, and try to
execute their role as well as they can, evaluate the result,
and repeat the sequence, over and over again, to improve
We can conclude that the most ancient defining characteristic
of the human mind is the ability to make things with other
made things. Our dance with made things started millions of
years ago, and it is still the center of the human universe. We
have moved from stone tools to satellites and silicon chips,
and the creative mind at the center of this interaction still
dominates the process.
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their skills. So can actors, craftsmen, and performance artists
in various fields. They envision a future scenario, and try to
approximate an imagined, improved version of their previous
performances. This is what our distant ancestors had to do
to master tools. And so do our children, as they experiment
within the context of a modern world of vastly increased
possibilities. This same basic mental apparatus is the
foundation of fantasy play, which entails imagining a virtual
world, and acting out various roles in it.
of any skill. In this sense, it is a “supra-modal” capacity, that
is, located above the specialized sensory and motor modalities,
and able to employ any of them. This allows us to assemble
our actions into elaborate hierarchies that weave and combine
various sensory and motor sub-systems into complex skill
systems. A good modern example is learning to drive, where we
have to learn several more specialized skills, such as backing
up, using a mirror, steering, braking, and parking, until these
subsystems (complex enough in their own right) are eventually
unified, through extensive practice, into a smooth unified
hierarchy that allows us to drive through heavy traffic.
This ability – to imagine and improve a performance scenario
– is very special to our species. Animals simply do not rehearse
and refine skills. As a result, they cannot create, assemble,
and self-install novel skill systems. Apes throw things at one
another when fighting, but you will never see a chimpanzee
practising his throwing, over and over, to improve his tech
nique. We might make an exception to this statement for the
vocalizations of certain songbirds, but their mimetic talent
appears to be modality-specific and limited to vocalization. In
contrast, we know that human ancestors had the essence of a more
general, more powerful kind of mimetic imagination almost 2 mil
lion years ago, when the first Acheulian stone tools appeared. Even
so far back in time, their capacity was neither modality-specific
nor restricted in its application; their new capacity was able not
only to improve existing skills, but also to invent new tools that
suggested new possibilities, and, in turn, demanded new skills.
Mimetic imagination served as the platform for later
evolutionary changes to the modern mind, including even
such advanced innovations as literacy. Literacy gave us a new
master toolkit that cultivated skills in abstract domains of
thought and memory. Like the hand axes of the Stone Age,
writing came from innovations in material culture, created in
the mimetic imagination, and is supported by skills learned
through endless practice and rehearsal. Our imaginative
interaction with material culture continues. It has increased
our mental toolkit immeasurably, and revolutionized how
we do our cognitive business, especially how we think and
remember in organized groups.
THE CYCLE OF CREATIVITY
This evolutionary reflection leads us to the creative cycle that
drives human cultural innovation. Human beings have existed in
a complex creative relationship with tools for millions of years.
The human mimetic imagination is thus inherently creative. It
is also a highly flexible capacity, and can supervise the learning
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were devised for a very different technological world, and
our approach to education probably needs to be re-examined
at the axiomatic level. However, it is also true that the basic
needs of the human individual have not changed, and that the
creative engine of cultural change lies, as always, inside our
minds and brains. We need to tap the creative potential of
children in order to optimize their ability to cope as adults in a
society that demands life-long flexibility and adaptability. Our
success in doing this will determine whether our civilization
can survive.
Tools, whether simple or complex, are a major part of the
cognitive ecology that we have built for ourselves to live in.
This teaches us a few practical lessons about the sources
of creativity in children. First, when viewed in this broad
historical framework, it is obviously the most natural thing
in the world for human children to play with simple tools to
make things. In doing so, they are engaging the most ancient
and unique features of our special human mentality. Failing
to allow children to cultivate their imaginations would be to
break faith with our ancestors, and to miss out on developing
core abilities that will serve as the foundation of their future
development.
Children at play are engaging in the serious business of building
the cognitive platform for their future skills. They are not only
assembling essential neural architectures in their young brains,
but also encouraging the development of their creative
capacities, as well as their proficiency at constructive selfcriticism. These abilities are essential, and their future as
learners depends upon it.
Evolution also throws light on why fantasy play is so much fun.
There are no motivational problems here, unlike many other
aspects of education and development. It is natural to engage in
fantasy play, precisely because it is such an ancient, adaptive,
and necessary activity. Moreover, it is inherently creative.
A mimetic performance always has an element of unpre
dictability, and requires imaginative innovation to overcome
obstacles to success.
Fantasy play is at the root of both art and science. Of course,
long training is needed to turn creative children into success
ful adult innovators, and not all will succeed. But early inter
vention is an essential step in giving children a good start in
using their minds independently to invent imagined futures.
Only later will a child learn how to cooperate with and organize
others to carry out projects together; some will progress
to the more abstract and socially connected stage that we
know as entrepreneurship. But the germ of creativity must be
stimulated early, so that the imagination is given full rein to
grow to its full potential, especially in those crucial preschool
years.
REFERENCES
Donald, M. (1991), Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of
Culture and Cognition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
The key issue facing educators and inventors in this century
is surely one of choice. Traditional ways of educating children
Cultures of Creativities
Donald, M. (2002), A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness, New
York, NY: W W Norton & Company Incorporated.
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