Contents -- Preface and acknowledgements -- List of figures -- List of tables -- List of plates -- List of maps -- List of abbreviations -- Notes on the contributors -- 1. Introduction: perspectives on the evolution of language in Africa -- 2. Earliest personal ornaments and their significance for the origin of language debate -- 3. Reading the artifacts: gleaning language skills from the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa -- 4. Red ochre, body painting, and language: interpreting the Blombos ochre -- 5. Theoretical underpinnings of inferences about language evolution: the syntax used at Blombos Cave -- 6. Fossil cues to the evolution of speech -- 7. Evidence against a genetic-based revolution in language 50,000 years ago -- 8. A "language-free" explanation for differences between the European Middle and Upper Paleolithic Record -- 9. Diversity in languages, genes, and the language faculty -- 10. How varied typologically are the languages of Africa? -- 11. What click languages can and can't tell us about language origins -- 12. Social origins: sharing, exchange, kinship -- 13. As well as words: Congo Pygmy hunting, mimicry, and play -- 14. Sexual selection models for the emergence of symbolic communication: why they should be reversed -- 15. Language, ochre, and the rule of law -- References -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z -- Contents: The Prehistory of Language.