This volume takes its subtitle from the theme of the ASHB meeting for 1996 Human Adaptibility: Future Trends and Lessons from the Past . The first paper is the annual conference lecture ‘Human Evolution Today: Which Way Next?’ delivered by Professor Maciej Hennenberg, the newly appointed Wood Jones Professor at the University of Adelaide. This is followed by the transcripts of two papers resulting from a debate on ‘Species and Human Evolution,’ also from the meeting. The first is ‘Species Concept in Palaeoanthropology’ by Colin Groves and the second, ‘The Problem of Species in Hominid Evolution’ by Maciej Hennenberg.There are also a series of individual papers. Two of these are shorter integrative pieces: ‘Philosophical Problems in Palaeoanthropology’ by Darren Curnoe, and ‘A Biological Basis for Generative Learning in Science’ by Lynette Schavieren and Mark Cosgrove.These are followed in turn by two proffered papers on specific problems: ‘Patterns of Morphological Discrimination in the Human Talus: a Consideration of the Case for Negative Function’, by Robert Kidd and Charles Oxnard, and ‘The Specific Status of a new Siwalik Sivapithecine Specimen’ by David Cameron, Rajeev Patnaik and Michelle Stevens.The final contribution is one of the longer integrative papers which has characterised each of the prior volumes: ‘The Interface of Function, Genes, Development and Evolution: Insights from Primate Morphometrics’ by Charles Oxnard.