Introduces a systemic-approach model for the expansion of cultural capacity with biological, historical, and individual elements

Provides a synthetic view of the different factors and mechanisms of cultural development and on expansions of cultural capacities in human evolution beyond the capacities observed in animal culture

Traces the different stages of the development of cultural capacity in humans through the archaeological record

Includes supplementary material: [...]

The Nature of Culture: Research Goals and New Directions.- Lessons From Tasmania ¿ Cultural Performance Versus Cultural Capacity.- Culture as a Form of Nature.- The Evolution of Hominin Culture and its Ancient Pre-Hominin Foundations.- Scarce but Significant: The Limestone Component of the Acheulean Site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel.- Technological Transformations Imply Cultural Transformations and Complex Cognition.- Neanderthal Utilitarian Equipment and Group Identity: The Social Context of Bifacial Tool Manufacture and Use.- Tracing Group Identity in Early Upper Paleolithic Stone and Organic Tools ¿ Some Thoughts and Many Questions.- Childhood, Play and the Evolution of Cultural Capacity in Neanderthals and Modern Humans.- Stone Tools: Evidence of Something in Between Culture and Cumulative Culture?.- The Island Test for Cumulative Culture in the Paleolithic.- Mountaineering or Ratcheting? Stone Age Hunting Weapons as Proxy for the Evolution of Human Technological, Behavioral and Cognitive Flexibility.