Approximately 400,000 years bp, novel technological behaviours appeared in the archaeological record, attested by evidence of the exploitation of previously unused resources and the production of new tools. I have reviewed such innovations, and I discuss them in the frame of the anthropological, palaeoneurological, genetic and behavioural changes that appeared in the Middle Pleistocene. I propose that at this chronology humans started to see the resources as ‘other-than-human’ sentient co-dwellers. The technological innovations expressed this novel cognitive complexity and the possible new things–things, human–things and environment–things relationships. Artefacts and technologies acquired multiple semiotic meanings that were strongly interconnected with the functional value. Ethnoarchaeological evidence suggested the possible symbolic acting beyond these innovations in material culture. This perspective has relevant implications in the archaeology of the ancient Palaeolithic. It suggests the need for a new view of material culture, one that goes beyond the classical list approach in the definition of modern symbolic mediated behaviour. Further, it allows one to overcome the traditional juxtaposition between ancient cultures and Homo sapiens in terms of complexity. The evidence discussed in this paper suggests that the ontological hypothesis could change our view of Middle Pleistocene hominids and the origin and definition of modern behaviour, and test the archaeological visibility of cognition in prehistory.

中文翻译：

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400,000 年前原材料选择和使用的变化：人类与其世界之间的一种新的、象征性的关系。讨论技术、社会和认知论点

大约40万年bp，考古记录中出现了新的技术行为，有证据证明以前未使用的资源的开发和新工具的生产。我回顾了这些创新，并在中更新世出现的人类学、古神经学、遗传和行为变化的框架内讨论它们。我建议在这个年表中，人类开始将资源视为“非人类”的有情共生者。技术创新表达了这种新颖的认知复杂性以及可能的新事物-事物、人-事物和环境-事物的关系。人工制品和技术获得了与功能价值密切相关的多重符号意义。民族考古学证据表明，除了这些物质文化的创新之外，还可能存在象征性行为。这种观点在古代旧石器时代的考古学中具有相关意义。它表明需要一种新的物质文化观，一种超越经典列表方法来定义现代象征性中介行为的方法。此外，它使人们能够克服古代文化与传统文化之间的传统并置智人在复杂性方面。本文讨论的证据表明，本体论假设可以改变我们对中更新世原始人的看法以及现代行为的起源和定义，并检验史前认知的考古可见性。