This volume is the culmination of the third project undertaken by Sheffield University's Hang Seng Centre for Cognitive Studies. (The first project resulted in Theories of Theories of Mind, edited by Peter Carruthers and Peter K. Smith, published by Cambridge University Press in 1996. The second project resulted in Language and Thought: Interdisciplinary Themes, edited by Peter Carruthers and Jill Boucher, published by Cambridge University Press in 1998.) Five interdisciplinary workshops were held over the period 1996–8, and the concluding conference was held in Stephenson Hall of Residence, University of Sheffield, in June 1998.

The intention behind the project was to bring together a select group of anthropologists, archaeologists, cognitive neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, linguists, philosophers and primatologists to consider what light could be thrown by evolutionary considerations on the nature and origins of human cognition. Most of the participants in the project were able to meet and discuss on a regular basis over a two-year period, before a sub-set of them presented their papers at the concluding conference. By that stage the barriers between the disciplines had really begun to crumble, and almost all contributions were heavily interdisciplinary in content. Those attending judged the occasion a great success.

Good conferences do not always make good volumes, of course; and in this case the editors were presented with particular difficulties.