From Tools to Symbols: from Early Hominids to Modern Humans, edited by Francesco d'Errico Lucinda Backwell, 2005. Johannesburg: Wits University Press; ISBN 1 86814 434 8 hardback PS38.94 US$59.95; ISBN 1 86814 411 9 paperback PS26.49 US$39.95; xxxii+574 pp. 140 figs. 33 tables
From Tools to Symbols represents an excellent synthesis of recent research on the origins of humankind, the evolution of the human brain and the emergence of modern human cultures from a number of disciplines. It is based on collaborative research by South African, French, American and German scholars, and contains twenty seven essays presented at a conference organized in 2003 in honor of the well known palaeoanthropologist Phillip Tobias. Lucinda Backwell is a researcher in the School of Geosciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. Francesco d'Errico is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Research Professor at the Department of Anthropology, George Washington University.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal