All that glitters is not gold: The false-symbol problem in archaeology.

Abstract

Stibbard-Hawkes forcefully alerts us to the pitfall of false-negative reasoning in symbolic archaeology. We highlight the twin problem of false-positive reasoning in what we call the "false-symbol problem." False symbols are intuitively special entities that, owing to their non-utilitarian nature, invite symbolic interpretation. But they are not symbolic. We link the false-symbol problem to work in comparative primate cognition, taking "primate art" as our main example.