The Sapient Mind

The introduction to The sapient mind: archaeology meets neuroscience has some points which are probably clear to many Indians (but not to me. Apart from some interest in agriculture and Telugu, my Indian roots do not seem to be very strong).
Here are some excerpts:
"... would it be more productive, especially from a long-term perspective, to explore the assumption that human intelligence 'spreads out' across the body-world boundary, thus extending beyond skin and skull into culture and the material world?
...the papers that comprise this Theme Issue seek to understand how different types of data, and the questions upon which those data are being brought to bear, are enmeshed and related as different aspects of a common phenomenon that we call 'the sapient mind'.
.......
To illustrate this central point let us use the example of Dauya discussed in the paper by Hutchins (2008). Dauya comes from the Wawela village on Boyowa Island in the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea. Dauya is a preliterate magician/astronomer responsible for fixing the agricultural calendar of the village to a seasonal calendar. This is a difficult task, given that the weather patterns in the Solomon Sea vary from year to year, but also a very important task, since the correct timing of the preparations of the gardens relevant to changes in the weather is crucial for the crop production of the village. Dauya accomplishes his task by examining the sky searching for Kibi (what we call the Pleiades) among the stars that are visible just before dawn. When Kibi is visible in the pre-dawn glow, then it is time to begin preparing the gardens. This might look like a trivial task to the analytically preoccupied modern western thinker but it is also a task that clearly involves some of the most crucial elements that make up a sapient mind.
.....
This leads us to the theme that underlies in one way or another all the papers in this issue and constitutes also a possible conceptual bridge between archaeology and neuroscience, i.e. learning. If we are to identify a single process or capacity as the key behind the accomplishments of Dauya's mind then the place to look would be at the way sapient minds 'learn to learn'. Indeed, according to Frith (2008), there is something special in Dauya's ability to benefit from cultural learning and the accumulated knowledge of Trobriand astronomy. That special something which seems to be unique to the human race is Dauya's ability to recognize and learn from instruction rather than from mere observation. Without this ability to learn by instruction and deliberately to share knowledge, Dauya could never have seen the sky as a meaningful sign in the complex system of Trobriand astronomy. Dauya's task to read the sky and construct his calendar would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to fulfil by mere observation, imitation and 'affordance learning'. Prolonged apprenticeship and formal instruction into Trobriand astronomy as a cultural practice is the key.”
The rest of the papers in this issue need subscrption. The only paper I could download so far from a different source is Edwin Huchins'The role of cultural practices in the emergence of modern human intelligence which is interesting but somewhat hard. (via Evo. Psychology discussion group)