This issue of Philosophical Transactions B is based on the papers and discussions from the conference ‘Percussive technology in human evolution: a comparative approach’, held at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, London, in September 2014. This conference celebrated the end of a 3-year Leverhulme Trust-funded International Network project (IN-052). Between 2011 and 2014, this project investigated the role of percussive technologies by bringing together paleoanthropologists and archaeologists studying the fossil record and the evolution of human cognition, and primatologists investigating percussion tool use in modern primates.
We wish to thank the generous support from The Leverhulme Trust to develop the Percussive Technology in Human Evolution project, and all the researchers involved in that network. We also extend our thanks to Adrian Arroyo for his assistance through the duration of the project and the conference, as well as to all conference speakers, attendants and session chairs, namely James Steele, Helene Roche, Andrew Whiten, John Gowlett and William McGrew.
We are also grateful to the Royal Society and Philosophical Transactions B for supporting the publication of this issue, and in particular to Helen Eaton for her editorial assistance.