This volume provides a narrative of early hominin evolution, linking material aspects of the early archaeological record with social, cognitive and symbolic landscapes.

1. What use is the Palaeolithic in promoting new prehistoric narratives? Chris Gosden; 2. Local objects, distant symbols: fission-fusion social systems and the evolution of human cognition Matt Grove and Robin Dunbar; 3. The extension of social relations in time and space during the Palaeolithic and beyond Dwight Read and Sander van der Leeuw; 4. Beyond animality and humanity: landscape, metaphor and identity in the early Upper Palaeolithic of Central Europe Martin Porr; 5. At the heart of the African Acheulean: the physical, social and cognitive landscapes of Kilombe John A. J. Gowlett, James S. Brink, Andy I. R. Herries, Sally Hoare, Isaya Onjala and Stephen M. Rucina; 6. All in a day's work?: early conflicts in expertise, life history and time management Anthony Sinclair; 7. To see a world in a hafted tool: birch-pitch composite technology, cognition and memory in Neanderthals R. M. Wragg Sykes; 8. Ecological niches, technological developments and physical adaptations of early humans in Europe: the handaxe-heidelbergensis hypothesis Nick Ashton; 9. 'Dancing to the rhythms of the biotidal zone': settlement history and culture history in Middle Pleistocene Britain Mark J. White; 10. 'Forest furniture' or 'forest managers'?: on Neanderthal presence in Last Interglacial environments Wil Roebroeks and Corrie C. Bakels; 11. Late Pleistocene hominin adaptations in Greece Paraskevi Elefanti and Gilbert Marshall; 12. In search of group identity: Late Pleistocene foragers in northern China Ofer Bar-Yosef; 13. Handaxe symmetry in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic: implications for the Acheulean gaze James Cole; 14. Landscapes of the dead: the evolution of human mortuary activity from body to place in Palaeolithic Europe Paul Pettitt; 15. Encoding and decoding the message: the case of mid Upper Palaeolithic female imagery Margherita Mussi; 16. Contextualising the female image: symbols for common ideas and communal identity in Upper Palaeolithic societies Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser and Olaf Jöris; 17. Taking a gamble: alternative approaches to the Mesolithic of western Scotland Steven Mithen.