He is a pioneer of evolutionary cognitive archaeology; his article "The intelligence of later Acheulean hominids" (Man, 1979) is considered a classic in the field.
[3] With his colleague, psychologist Frederick L. Coolidge, Wynn developed the Enhanced Working Memory Hypothesis (EWMH), which proposes that a small but heritable change in executive functioning may have been the reason why Homo sapiens persisted and flourished, while cousin species like the Neandertals went extinct.
[3] In 2013, Wynn began working with LA artist Tony Berlant on an exhibition of Acheulean handaxes that celebrated their importance in the evolution of aesthetic sensibility.
[15][16][17][18][19] Wynn and Berlant continued to collaborate on Mimbres painting, with an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and associated publication in 2018.
Entitled "Working Memory: Beyond Language and Symbolism," the proceedings were published as a special issue of Current Anthropology.