PLEASE NOTE

This book, which is intended as a reference volume, was published in January 1997 (despite its listing as 1996). The Table of Contents is available, and Chapter Abstracts can be accessed from there. Some links are beginning to be listed, (but more will be available in the revised version in preparation).

This book had a long gestation. It was first mooted at a UNESCO conference in Paris in August 1981. An outline was agreed by the editors in mid-1982, and a publisher's contract was concluded in late 1983 with Oxford University Press, stipulating that the manuscript was to be delivered in January 1986. The manuscript was actually delivered in December 1990, with the result that some chapters were considerably more up-to-date than others. The copy editor's queries were dealt with by December 1992, and many chapters were extensively revised during this time. Half of the chapters were set as galley proofs in late 1993, at which point what were thought to be final revisions were made to all the material assembled. Some chapters were withdrawn by their authors, new ones were written in their place, and a full set of second galley proofs were available in July 1995. Page proofs were commissioned in August 1995, and were with the chapter authors' for final checking during September 1995. Publication was anticipated early in 1996, but instead a second set of page proofs were generated in April, 1996, and remaining queries were cleared by July. Publication occured in January 1997. A paperback edition is to be published by Blackwell in mid-1999.

Oxford University Press gave permission for the chapter abstracts to appear on the WWW in July 1995. They and we as editors implicitly realise that the pace of development in the many fields that contribute to an understanding of the evolutionary elaboration of human symbolic abilities is such that a paper-based book publishing technology cannot survive as a reference medium for much longer. The history of this Handbook establishes at least that.

The Web provides an ideal medium for continuously updating the material the Handbook has drawn together. We will be putting the 'systems' in place that allow this process of continuous revision over the next few months.

Comments to A.J.Lock@massey.ac.nz

Department of Psychology, Massey University , New Zealand

URL: http://www.massey.ac.nz/~ALock/hbook/frontis.htm

last changed Tuesday, 23 February 1999

Copyright © 1996 Andrew Lock, Charles Peters, and contributors listed above

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