Scaffolding Minds: Human Collective Intelligence through Space, Body and Material Symbols

Human collective intelligence—the capacity of groups to solve problems, make decisions, andacquire knowledge beyond individual capabilities—is here understood as an emergentphenomenon that evolved in our lineage from a distinct trajectory of epistemic nicheconstruction (ENC), and progressively sustained the latter. Humans systematically alter theirinformational landscapes in materially visible ways by creating enduring spatial andartefactual scaffolds for improved cognitive performance and social coordination. In thispaper, we propose a set of criteria to define ENC and track its emergence in the archaeologicalrecord. These criteria highlight the importance of persistent, publicly accessible, andevolutionarily incremental modifications that sustained behavioural coordination amongindividuals in space and time. We apply this framework to three major domains of materialculture: the structuring of space for collective action, the culturalization of the human body,and the emergence of exosomatic artefacts to store coded information. We argue that thesepractices did not merely externalise knowledge but progressively transformed materialculture and environments into targeted epistemic infrastructures able to scaffold and amplifygroup-level performances characteristic of collective intelligence, thus shedding light on theevolution of human cognition and social organization.