| Preface | |
| Irving Stone | |
| Biographical Sketches | |
| Ch. 1 | Modeling Human Origins: Are We Sexy Because We're Smart, Or Smart Because We're Sexy? | 1 |
| Modeling Human Evolution: The Scenario | 1 |
| The Setting of Human Evolution | 2 |
| The Australopithecines | 5 |
| The Reproductive Adaptations of Hominids | 15 |
| The Post-Australopithecine Period of Human Evolution | 24 |
| Summary: An Origins Scenario as a Formal Hypothesis | 25 |
| Ch. 2 | The Origin of the Genus Homo | 29 |
| The Species of Australopithecus | 30 |
| Homo Habilis | 31 |
| Early Homo Erectus in Africa | 33 |
| The Origins of Homo Erectus | 43 |
| Ch. 3 | Archeological Interpretations of Early Hominid Behavior and Ecology | 49 |
| The Early Archeological Record | 51 |
| Setting Hominids in an Ecological Context | 54 |
| The Significance of Making Tools and Moving Resources | 58 |
| Need for a New Concept of Culture | 67 |
| Ch. 4 | New Views on Modern Human Origins | 75 |
| Models of Modern Human Origins | 76 |
| The Fossil Evidence | 79 |
| The Dating Evidence | 82 |
| The Molecular Evidence | 85 |
| Interpreting the Data | 87 |
| Ch. 5 | Humans as Materialists and Symbolists: Image Making in the Upper Paleolithic | 95 |
| The Images and the Interpretations | 97 |
| Material Practices and Representation | 106 |
| Ch. 6 | Culture and Human Evolution | 119 |
| Cultural Evolution Is Darwinian | 120 |
| Culture Is an Adaptation | 124 |
| Culture Is Maladaptive | 126 |
| Glossary | 135 |
| Index | 143 |