In 1998 a conference was held to mark the 150th anniversary of the famous Gibraltar skull. The papers reflect the state of our knowledge about the role played by Gibraltar and the southern Iberian Peninsula in the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. Contents: Neandertal landscapes (W Davies, J Stewart & T H van Andel) ; Mediterranean perspective on the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic (O Bar-Yosef) ; Mousterian in Mediterranean France (C C Szmidt) ; Late Neandertals in the South West of France (J-P Rigaud) ; Chatelperronian chronology and the case for Neanderthal/Modern Human `acculturation' (P Mellars) ; Final Acheulian to the Middle Palaeolithic in the Iberian Peninsula (F G Pacheco, A Santiago Perez, J Ma Gutierrez Lopez, E Mata Almonte & L Aguilera Rodriguez) ; Middle Palaeolithic technocomplexes and lithic industries in the Northwest Iberian Peninsula (J A Cano Pan, F Giles Pacheco, E Aguirre, A Santiago Perez, F J Garcia Prieto, E Mata Almonte, J Ma Gutierrez & O Prieto Reina) ; Mousterian hearths at Abric Romani, Catalonia (I Pasto, E Allue & Josep Vallverdu) ; Late Middle Palaeolithic in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula (M Vaquero & E Carbonell) ; Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in Cantabrian Spain (V Cabrera, A Pike-Tay, M Lloret & F Bernaldo de Quiros) ; Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in Portugal (L Raposo) ; Late extinction of Iberian Neanderthals