Beginning with the 1973 publication of his classic monograph, Evolution of the Brain and Intelligence, Harry Jerison's ongoing research has had a profound impact on the questions, methods, and theoretical framework that continue to shape the field of brain evolution. On April 2,1998, researchers from Europe, Africa, and the United States gathered in Salt Lake City at the sixty-seventh annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists to take part in a symposium that recognized and celebrated Harry Jerison's intellectual influence on the development of our discipline. The session, entitled ‘Current findings on mammalian, primate, and human brain evolution: A symposium in honor of Harry J. Jerison’, was the impetus for the present volume. In addition to contributions from participants at that symposium, several prominent investigators who could not be present have also contributed chapters. Although the fourteen chapters that comprise the bulk of this volume were intended to be ‘state-of-the-art’ reviews of the different sub-areas of brain evolution, many authors have gone much further by contributing new results of original research that would normally appear in peer-reviewed journals, and by providing glimpses of where they think the field is headed as we enter the twenty-first century. That they have chosen to do so is a reflection of their admiration, respect, and fondness for Harry Jerison.