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.