“Cognitive perspectives in tool behavior” is a series of volumes dealing with tool behavior in animals, fossil hominins and modern Homo sapiens. The papers of this series focus on cognition, but may use data of different origins and various approaches – from archaeology, paleoanthropology, primatology ethology, technology, psychology, neurology, or philosophy. Tool behavior is not exclusively human, but its development plays an important role in human evolution; today humans live in a permanent symbiosis with tools. Material manifestations of tool behavior make up the major part of the archaeological record. They are invaluable evidence not only of past people’s actions, but also of their perceptions, thoughts, cultural performances as well as cultural capacities. The aim of the series is to broaden our understanding of tool behavior in all hominin and non-human species, its different manifestations, and the corresponding cognitive prerequisites. With the collection of data and approaches from various disciplines, the “cognitive perspectives in tool behavior” will help us learn more about an important part of human behavior, gain better insights into cognitive constraints, and set them into an evolutionary frame.

“Cognitive perspectives in tool behavior” is published electronically as an open source series on the tobias-lib server of the University of Tübingen library. The intention is to spread academic theses and studies with comprehensive documentation, which would otherwise not be published, would be very limited in distribution and/or very expensive to access.

Series’ editor: PD Dr. Miriam Noël Haidle, miriam.haidle@uni-tuebingen.de