Introduction - searching the missing links -- Part I: The Biosemiotic Connection -- 1. Towards a semiotic cognitive science: why neither the phenomenological nor computational approaches are adequate -- 2. The Symbolic Species hypothesis revisited -- 3. Peirce and Deacon on meaning and the evolution of language -- 4. Semiosis beyond signs. On a two or three missing links on the way to human beings -- Part II: The Prehistoric and Comparative Connection -- 5. The natural history of intentionality. A biosemiotic approach -- 6. The evolution of learning to communicate: Avian model for the missing link -- 7. From parsing actions to understanding intentions -- 8. New non-Linnaean, neo-cladistic nomenclature and classification conventions exemplified by recent and fossil hominids -- 9. ¬¬¬¬The tripod effect: Coevolution of cooperation, cognition and communication -- Part III: The Cognitive and Anthropological Connection -- 10. Language as a repository of tacit knowledge -- 11. Levels of immersion and embodiment -- 12. Emerging symbols -- 13. Gender in innovative techno fantasies -- Epilogue -- 14. New perspectives -- Index.

Scientific considerations about the origin of humanity might not be entirely new. However, the articles in this volume present a spectrum/variety of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives which no doubt calls attention and dares to present the span of the problem. The reader is inspired to continuously push and re-think ways of thinking about the themes, instead of fixing and unequivocalizing and is forced to acknowledge a diversity of angles and the need of merging different approaches to achieve further insights on the central theme. The volume succinctly distils frontline research within different subfields by compiling contributions from widely acknowledged academics.