The Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution

Explanations and accounts of our own origins have become one of the most popular of all the areas in science that are now regularly brought into the public arena via television, lavishly illustrated books, and even cartoons.

The discovery of fossils and artefact's has its own intrinsic interest, but it is the origin of our characteristically human abilities - speech, the creation of images, reading, and writing - that holds the imagination.

This volume is a reference work that sets out and evaluates the basic knowledge and theory relevant to these origins of these abilities that have accumulated in the scientific literature over the last few decades.

It is a compendium of and a guide to the general topics that assist in understanding human symbolic evolution.

Contributions to the volume include those from linguistics, anthropology and psychology.

Primatologists and biologists have also contributed giving the reader a uniquely broad and accessible reference work.