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Paleontology (Anthropology)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Paleontology is the study of the history of life through the fossil record. It is part of the Earth sciences because fossils derive from the geological record, and it is part of the biological sciences because paleontology concerns itself with the evolution of life. Paleontology has played a key role in informing anthropology about the history of our own species, Homo sapiens, along with its ancestors and extinct relatives. The fossil record also provides information about the ecological and environmental context in which humans and our ancestors evolved. Paleontology is concerned with evolutionary processes that apply to all species, including our own. The field of paleoanthropology includes researchers focused on human paleontology, primate paleontology, and vertebrate paleontologists studying other taxa associated with hominins or other primates.
  4.  
  5. Syntheses
  6.  
  7. There are several major works that focus on the hominin fossil record and a few that focus on the primate fossil record. Some of these are highly descriptive, while others provide more contextual information and discuss key hypotheses that seek to explain human origins and primate evolution.
  8.  
  9. Hominin Evolution
  10.  
  11. Humans belong to the zoological family Hominidae, which also includes the African apes. The term “hominin” is colloquial for Hominini, the tribe that includes species on the human side of the branch that separated us from our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees. Cartmill and Smith 2009, Conroy and Pontzer 2012, and Klein 2009 offer excellent introductions to fossil hominins and their context, while Schwartz and Tattersall 2002, Schwartz and Tattersall 2003, and Schwartz and Tattersall 2005 are highly descriptive.
  12.  
  13. Cartmill, Matt, and Fred Smith. 2009. The human lineage. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
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  15. A very good synthesis of the hominin fossil record with extensive discussions of primate anatomy and evolution.
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  17. Conroy, Glenn, and Herman Pontzer. 2012. Reconstructing human origins. New York: W. W. Norton.
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  19. A synthesis of hominin paleontology focusing on the fossil record itself and on the major theories and interpretive framework. This volume provides a clear introduction to the main sites, species, and ideas relevant to a broad understanding of human evolution. It is a useful text for advanced undergraduate students and beginning graduate students.
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  21. Holloway, Ralph L., Douglas C. Broadfield, Michael S. Yuan, et al. 2004. The Human Fossil Record. Vol. 3, Brain Endocasts: The Paleoneurological Evidence. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
  22. DOI: 10.1002/0471663573Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  23. This volume focuses on a special type of fossil: natural endocasts that preserve broad external morphological features of the brain.
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  25. Klein, Richard. 2009. The human career. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
  26. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226027524.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  27. One of the main texts on both the fossil and archeological records of human evolution. One of the main strengths of this book is that both the paleontological and the archeological record are emphasized and discussed in detail.
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  29. Schwartz, Jeffrey H., and Ian Tattersall. 2002. The Human Fossil Record. Vol. 1, Terminology and Craniodental Morphology of Genus Homo (Europe). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
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  31. The first volume of a comprehensive four-part series on the fossil record of human evolution. This volume provides a useful guide to hominin anatomical terminology.
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  33. Schwartz, Jeffrey H., and Ian Tattersall. 2003. The Human Fossil Record. Vol. 2, Craniodental Morphology of Genus Homo (Africa and Asia). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
  34. DOI: 10.1002/0471722715Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  35. The second volume of a comprehensive four-part series on the fossil record of human evolution, focused on African and Asian specimens well illustrated with numerous photographs.
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  37. Schwartz, Jeffrey H., and Ian Tattersall. 2005. The Human Fossil Record. Vol. 4: Craniodental Morphology of Early Hominids and Overview. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
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  39. The fourth volume of the series describes hominin species from the late Miocene to the early Pleistocene.
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  41. Primate Evolution
  42.  
  43. Humans are primates, and anthropologists interested in human evolution take a deep interest in the evolution of our closest living relatives and their ancestors. One of the most accessible introductions to primate evolution is Primate Adaptation and Evolution (Fleagle 2013). This comprehensive and readable volume introduces the living primates as well as their fossil record and includes chapters on ecology and biogeography. This book is often used in primatology classes for undergraduate as well as beginning graduate students. Martin 1990 is a landmark of scholarly work on primates, with an emphasis on the anatomy of living and fossil species. There are also two excellent edited volumes that bring multiple chapters on the fossil record of primates (Hartwig 2002) and on all the major groups of living forms (Campbell, et al. 2010).
  44.  
  45. Campbell, Christina J., Agustin Fuentes, Katherine C. MacKinnon, et al. 2010. Primates in perspective. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  47. This excellent edited volume focuses on the behavior, ecology, biogeography, and evolution of the primates. It is a very good starting reference for those seeking to learn more about particular primate taxa.
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  49. Fleagle, John G. 2013. Primate Adaptation and Evolution. 3d ed. San Diego, CA: Elsevier.
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  51. An excellent reference to the primate fossil record and to the living species that compose this order of mammals. Very well illustrated and clearly written.
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  53. Hartwig, Walter C., ed. 2002. The Primate Fossil Record. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  55. This edited volume presents a well-written survey of the fossil record of primate evolution spanning the last sixty-five million years. A specialist writes each chapter on a particular group of primates.
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  57. Martin, Robert. 1990. Primate origins and evolution: A phylogenetic reconstruction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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  59. A well-illustrated scholarly treatise bringing together information from comparative anatomy and the fossil record.
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  61. Mammal Evolution
  62.  
  63. There are theoretical and practical reasons why paleontologists interested in the hominin and the primate fossil record also have a keen interest in the evolution of other vertebrates, particularly mammals. Field paleoanthropologists often find fossils of vertebrates other than hominins or other primates, and these provide crucial information about evolutionary context. The evolution of primates is also better understood when viewed in the light of broad evolutionary processes that affect other animals. One of the most important recent works on the African fossil record is Werdelin and Sanders 2010. This technical volume describes each group of African mammals and their evolutionary history. It is a starting point for a current understanding of the record of African fossil mammals for the last sixty-five million years. The other books described provide well-illustrated introductions for the general reader who may not wish to dwell on the geological and anatomical details of fossil mammals.
  64.  
  65. Agustí, Jordi, and Mauricio Antón. 2002. Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids: 65 million years of mammalian evolution in Europe. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
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  67. A beautifully illustrated and well-written narrative of mammal evolution in Europe during the span of the Cenozoic.
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  69. Turner, Alan, and Mauricio Antón. 2004. Evolving Eden: An illustrated guide to the evolution of the African large mammals fauna. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
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  71. A superbly illustrated guide to the fossil mammals of Africa and their living relatives. The text has some weaknesses, but the illustrations provide vivid and informative snapshots of African mammals at various times during the Cenozoic.
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  73. Wang, Xiaoming, Lawrence J. Flynn, and Mikael Fortelius, eds. 2013. Fossil Mammals of Asia: Neogene Biostratigraphy and Chronology. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
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  75. This edited volume fills a major void by providing detailed descriptions of fossil mammals and their geological context in Asia during the last twenty-five million years.
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  77. Werdelin, Lars, and William J. Sanders, eds. 2010. Cenozoic mammals of Africa. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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  79. There are not very many synthetic reference works for the paleontological record of the many mammalian taxa associated with human evolution, but this monumental volume provides a thorough introduction to each major group of mammals from the African Cenozoic. This is an excellent entry point for students and researchers to learn about the African fossil record of mammal evolution.
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  81. Journals
  82.  
  83. The leading science journals in the world often publish research on the fossil record of humans and the paleontological context of hominin discoveries. The initial announcements of key discoveries are often published in Nature or Science, and the articles are typically accompanied by readable and thoughtful commentaries. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA also regularly carries articles on the hominin fossil record as well as that of other primates. More specialized journals include the Journal of Human Evolution, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Current Anthropology, Evolutionary Anthropology, and the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, among others.
  84.  
  85. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 1918–.
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  87. This is the official journal of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, and publishes articles on hominin and primate evolution. The journal includes a yearly supplement (Yearbook of Physical Anthropology) with extensive review articles and another with the abstracts of the annual meetings of the association.
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  89. Current Anthropology. 1955–.
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  91. This journal sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research regularly features articles on the evolution of humans and other primates.
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  93. Evolutionary Anthropology. 1992–.
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  95. An excellent source of review articles on the evolution of humans and other primates.
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  97. Journal of Human Evolution. 1972–.
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  99. This is the primary journal for monthly articles on the fossil record of humans and other primates.
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  101. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 1981–.
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  103. The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology publishes this bimonthly journal with many articles describing the paleontological record relevant to primate (including human) evolution.
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  105. Nature. 1869–.
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  107. The international scientific journal frequently publishes articles that describe and interpret the fossil record of primate evolution.
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  109. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 1915–.
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  111. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America is a multidisciplinary serial that frequently includes articles on cutting-edge research on the fossil record.
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  113. Science. 1880–.
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  115. The journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science publishes over a wide range of scientific topics including key papers on human and primate evolution.
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  117. Fossil Hominins and Their Context
  118.  
  119. About seven million years ago, the ancestors of the African apes (chimpanzees and gorillas) separated from the ancestors of humans. Species that fall on the human side of this evolutionary divergence are classified as hominins, members of the zoological tribe Hominini. Key characteristics of the Hominini include habitual bipedalism and a reduced canine mechanism (upper canine and lower premolar). The earliest recognized hominin taxa include Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, and Ardipithecus. These hominins date from nearly 7 million years ago to about 4.4 million years ago. By 4.2 million years ago, the genus Australopithecus appears in the fossil record of Kenya and Ethiopia, and diversifies into at least three or four species. One of these species of Australopithecus is likely to be ancestral to the earliest species of our genus, Homo, with a first record nearly 2.8 million years ago. Alongside early Homo, species of the genus Paranthropus occupied regions of eastern and southern Africa until becoming extinct probably near the end of the Early Pleistocene (about 800,000 years ago). Our species, Homo sapiens, has its earliest record nearly 200,000 years ago in eastern Africa. It is likely that several species of Homo co-existed until the end of the Pleistocene, including the controversial species Homo floresiensis.
  120.  
  121. The Genus Sahelanthropus
  122.  
  123. Found in Chad and dated to nearly seven million years ago, Sahelanthropus tchadensis may be the earliest species of hominin (Brunet, et al. 2002; Wood 2002; Vignaud, et al. 2002; Zollikofer, et al. 2005), but the recognition of Sahelanthropus as a human ancestor has not been universal. Wolpoff, et al. 2006 argues that the species is actually closer to other apes (e.g., gorillas) than to humans. This controversy is far from resolved. The papers below provide an entry point to both sides of the controversy: that the anatomy of Sahelanthropus shows evidence of bipedalism and a reduced canine mechanism or that this anatomy places the species closer to the African apes than to humans.
  124.  
  125. Brunet, Michel, Franck Guy, David R. Pilbeam, et al. 2002. A new hominid from the upper Miocene of Chad, Central Africa. Nature 418:145–151.
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  127. The initial description Sahelanthropus tchadensis, of one of the earliest likely hominins, was followed by controversy about the actual taxonomic affinities of the specimen.
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  129. Vignaud, Patrick, Philippe Duringer, Hassane Taisso Mackaye, et al. 2002. Geology and palaeontology of the upper Miocene Toros-Menalla hominid locality, Chad. Nature 418:152–155.
  130. DOI: 10.1038/nature00880Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  131. This article describes the geological and paleontological context of the Sahelanthropus tchadensis locality (Toros-Menalla), and describes the paleoenvironments as gallery forest bordering a lake, with open grasslands in the vicinity of the hominin site. The fossils are not precisely dated, but their age is very likely to be between six and seven million years ago.
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  133. Wolpoff, Milford H., John Hawks, Brigitte Senut, et al. 2006. An ape or the ape: Is the Toumaï cranium TM 266 a hominid? PaleoAnthropology:35–50.
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  135. This paper presents a detailed anatomical analysis of the Sahelanthropus cranium and concludes it is unlikely to represent a hominin or human ancestor.
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  137. Wong, Kate. 2003. An ancestor to call our own. Scientific American (January 1).
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  139. Science writer Kate Wong does her best to provide a thorough and balanced discussion of the earliest hominins and some of the controversial issues surrounding them. Her articles in Scientific American are readable and informative. Available online for purchase.
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  141. Wood, Bernard A. 2002. Hominid revelations from Chad. Nature 418:133–136.
  142. DOI: 10.1038/418133aSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  143. Commentary on the importance of the Sahelanthropus discovery from a leading paleoanthropologist.
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  145. Zollikofer, Christoph P. E., Marcia S. Ponce de León, Daniel E. Lieberman, et al. 2005. Virtual cranial reconstruction of Sahelanthropus tchadensis. Nature 434.7034: 755–759.
  146. DOI: 10.1038/nature03397Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  147. This paper describes the latest computer-imaging techniques to reconstruct the originally distorted Sahelanthropus cranium.
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  149. The Genus Orrorin
  150.  
  151. Orrorin tugenensis is a species found in the Tugen Hills of Kenya and dated to about six million years ago (Aiello and Collard 2001; Galik, et al. 2004; Pickford and Senut 2001; Senut, et al. 2001). It is noteworthy that the species was bipedal, as can be established from the anatomy of the femur, but the exact type of bipedalism has been controversial (Almécija, et al. 2013; Richmond and Jungers 2008).
  152.  
  153. Aiello, Leslie C., and Mark Collard. 2001. Our newest oldest ancestor? Nature 410:526–527.
  154. DOI: 10.1038/35069164Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  155. Commentary by two leading paleoanthropologists on the context of the newly described Orrorin tugenensis specimens.
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  157. Almécija, Sergio, Melissa Tallman, David M. Alba, et al. 2013. The femur of Orrorin tugenensis exhibits morphometric affinities with both Miocene apes and later hominins. Nature Communications 4.
  158. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3888Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  159. The authors provide a fresh perspective on Orrorin and conclude that its femoral anatomy is intermediate between that of some Miocene apes and later species of the genus Australopithecus.
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  161. Galik, K., B. Senut, M. Pickford, et al. 2004. External and internal morphology of the BAR 1002’00 Orrorin tugenensis femur. Science 305.5689: 1450–1453.
  162. DOI: 10.1126/science.1098807Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  163. Galik and colleagues use computerized tomography to describe the internal morphology of the femoral neck of specimens attributed to Orrorin tugenensis.
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  165. Pickford, Martin, and Brigitte Senut. 2001. The geological and faunal context of Late Miocene hominid remains from Lukeino, Kenya. C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Sciences de la Terre et des planètes 332.2: 145–152.
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  167. Martin Pickford, a prolific vertebrate paleontologist, describes the fauna and geological context of the newly named species Orrorin tugenensis. The species dates to nearly six million years ago.
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  169. Richmond, Brian G., and William L. Jungers. 2008. Orrorin tugenensis femoral morphology and the evolution of hominin bipedalism. Science 319.5870: 1662–1665.
  170. DOI: 10.1126/science.1154197Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  171. Paleoanthropologists Richmond and Jungers carry out a morphological analysis of the Orrorin femora and conclude that it resembles later hominin species of the genus Australopithecus. This finding has important implications for understanding the origin of human bipedalism.
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  173. Senut, Brigitte, Martin Pickford, Dominique Gommery, et al. 2001. First hominid from the Miocene (Lukeino Formation, Kenya). C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Sciences de la Terre et des planètes 332.2: 137–144.
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  175. The species Orrorin tugenensis, first described in this article, was proposed based on fossils discovered in the Tugen Hills of Kenya in 2000. The authors describe a human-like femur for this species and imply Orrorin is ancestral to Homo, with Australopithecus as a side branch. This conclusion has been controversial (see other articles in this section).
  176. Find this resource:
  177. The Genus Ardipithecus
  178.  
  179. There are two recognized species of Ardipithecus, an earlier one (5.8 to 5.2 million years ago) called Ardipithecus kadabba (Haile-Selassie 2001) and a later one (4.4 million years ago) called Ardipithecus ramidus (White, et al. 1994; White, et al. 2009). So far these species are known only from Ethiopia. Both taxa show the hallmarks of the Hominini: bipedalism and reduced canine mechanism, but their status remains controversial (Wood and Harrison 2011). The nature of the environments of Ardipithecus ramidus is important for debates about the origins of bipedalism, but this topic has been intensely debated and remains controversial (Cerling, et al. 2010; Cerling, et al. 2015; White, et al. 2009).
  180.  
  181. Cerling, Thure E., Francis H. Brown, and Jonathan G. Wynn. 2015. On the environment of Aramis: Concerning comments and replies. Current Anthropology 56.3: 445–446.
  182. DOI: 10.1086/681535Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  183. The debate about Ardipithecus ramidus and its environments continues in a series of exchanges between Cerling and colleagues and White and colleagues, with one side arguing for grassland environments associated with this species, and the other for more forested conditions. This debate is important to understand the environments in which hominin bipedalism emerged.
  184. Find this resource:
  185. Cerling, Thure E., Naomi E. Levin, Jay Quade, et al. 2010. Comment on the paleoenvironment of Ardipithecus ramidus. Science 328.5982: 1105.
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  187. Thure Cerling and colleagues use the same evidence provided by WoldeGabriel, et al. 2009 to come up with different paleoenvironmental interpretations regarding Ardipithecus ramidus. This paper reconstructs the evidence as indicating fairly open habitats with extensive grasslands associated with this hominin. In this interpretation, savannas likely played a major role in shaping early human evolution.
  188. Find this resource:
  189. Haile-Selassie, Yohannes. 2001. Late Miocene hominids from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. Nature 412:178–181.
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  191. Ethiopian paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie describes the new subspecies Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba, which in later papers would become the species Ardipithecus kadabba. The species is older than Ardipithecus ramidus and dates to between 5.8 and 5.2 million years ago.
  192. Find this resource:
  193. Haile-Selassie, Yohannes, Gen Suwa, and Tim D. White. 2004. Late Miocene teeth from Middle Awash, Ethiopia, and early hominid dental evolution. Science 303.5663: 1503–1505.
  194. DOI: 10.1126/science.1092978Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  195. The authors elevate the subspecies Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba to the species Ardipithecus kadabba.
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  197. Haile-Selassie, Yohannes, and Giday WoldeGabriel, eds. 2009. Ardipithecus kadabba: Late Miocene evidence from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. Vol. 2. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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  199. An edited volume describing in detail the fauna and paleontological context of the Middle Awash Adu-Asa Formation.
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  201. White, Tim D., Berhane Asfaw, Yonas Beyene, et al. 2009. Ardipithecus ramidus and the paleobiology of early hominids. Science 326.5949: 64–86.
  202. DOI: 10.1126/science.1175802Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  203. The initial description of Ardipithecus ramidus was based on very fragmentary material, but in a series of papers in the journal Science, Tim White and colleagues provide a detailed description of a skeleton from the Aramis site in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia.
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  205. White, Tim D., Gen Suwa, and Berhane Asfaw. 1994. Australopithecus ramidus, a new species of early hominid from Aramis, Ethiopia. Nature 371:306–312.
  206. DOI: 10.1038/371306a0Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  207. Indications in the early 1990s of a new species of hominin from the Early Pliocene of Ethiopia were fragmentary remains assigned to Australopithecus ramidus, but the authors would later create the new genus Ardipithecus for these fossils. The specimens from the site of Aramis in Ethiopia’s Afar Triangle date to 4.4 million years ago.
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  209. WoldeGabriel, Giday, Stanley H. Ambrose, Doris Barboni, et al. 2009. The geological, isotopic, botanical, invertebrate, and lower vertebrate surroundings of Ardipithecus ramidus. Science 326.5949: 65–655.
  210. DOI: 10.1126/science.1175817Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  211. An important but controversial paper interpreting the paleoenvironmental evidence surrounding Ardipithecus as indicative of closed (wooded) habitats. The authors conclude that Ardipithecus lived in closed, forested environments, and therefore open savannas did not play a major role in shaping the adaptations of early hominins.
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  213. Wood, Bernard, and Terry Harrison. 2011. The evolutionary context of the first hominins. Nature 470.7334: 347–352.
  214. DOI: 10.1038/nature09709Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  215. This important paper highlights the difficulties of establishing whether Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, and Ardipithecus are members of the hominin clade, or are more closely related to other apes.
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  217. Origins of Australopithecus
  218.  
  219. The genus Australopithecus originated in eastern Africa by 4.2 million years ago, and the earliest recognized species of the genus is Australopithecus anamensis (Leakey, et al. 1995). Compared to earlier hominins, this species had a more robust mandible and molars with thicker dental enamel and was undoubtedly bipedal (White, et al. 2006). The fossil evidence indicates that it inhabited complex environments that included patches of forest or forests surrounding major rivers as well as areas with grasslands (Andrews 1995; Schoeninger, et al. 2003; Wynn 2000). These mosaic environments characterized much of the early record of human evolution in Africa.
  220.  
  221. Andrews, Peter. 1995. Ecological apes and ancestors. Nature 376:555–556.
  222. DOI: 10.1038/376555a0Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  223. Insightful commentary by a well known paleoecologist on the context of early Pliocene fossils from eastern Africa, including Australopithecus anamensis.
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  225. Harris, John M., and Meave G. Leakey, eds. 2003. Geology and vertebrate paleontology of the early Pliocene site of Kanapoi, northern Kenya. Vol. 498. Los Angeles: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
  226. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  227. In this edited volume, John Harris, Meave Leakey, and colleagues provide a thorough description of the geology and vertebrate paleontological record of the site of Kanapoi, where key specimens of Australopithecus anamensis were found.
  228. Find this resource:
  229. Leakey, Meave G., Craig S. Feibel, Ian McDougall, et al. 1995. New four-million-year-old hominid species from Kanapoi and Allia Bay, Kenya. Nature 376:565–571.
  230. DOI: 10.1038/376565a0Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  231. Meave Leakey and colleagues describe a new hominin species, Australopithecus anamensis, based on fossils from the sites of Kanapoi and Allia Bay in the Lake Turkana Basin of Kenya. This species is the oldest representative of the genus Australopithecus, and dates from about 4.2 million years to 3.9 million years ago.
  232. Find this resource:
  233. Schoeninger, Margaret J., Holly Reeser, and Kris Hallin. 2003. Paleoenvironment of Australopithecus anamensis at Allia Bay, East Turkana, Kenya: Evidence from mammalian herbivore enamel stable isotopes. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22:200–207.
  234. DOI: 10.1016/S0278-4165(03)00034-5Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  235. Using stable carbon and oxygen isotopes from mammalian tooth enamel, the authors reconstruct the environment associated with Australopithecus anamensis as a mosaic that included significant woodlands and grasslands.
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  237. White, Tim D., Giday WoldeGabriel, Berhane Asfaw, et al. 2006. Asa Issie, Aramis and the origin of Australopithecus. Nature 440.7086: 883–889.
  238. DOI: 10.1038/nature04629Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  239. The site of Asa Issie in the Middle Awash region of Ethiopia’s Afar Triangle yields important paleontological evidence to interpret the evolution of Australopithecus anamensis and associated vertebrate species. The authors interpret the faunal evidence as indicative of woodland paleoenvironments.
  240. Find this resource:
  241. Wynn, Jonathan G. 2000. Paleosols, stable carbon isotopes, and paleoenvironmental interpretation of Kanapoi, Northern Kenya. Journal of Human Evolution 39.4: 411–432.
  242. DOI: 10.1006/jhev.2000.0431Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  243. This paper is based on stable carbon isotopes from fossil soils, so it is not technically a paleontological paper, but its data and interpretations of the Kanapoi paleoenvironments are of importance to interpreting the habitats of the fauna from this site.
  244. Find this resource:
  245. The Diversity of Australopithecus
  246.  
  247. The genus Australopithecus was first named and described by Raymond Dart in his landmark 1925 paper. Today several species of the genus are recognized. In southern Africa, these include A. africanus (Dart 1925) and A. sediba (Berger, et al. 2010); in eastern Africa there is A. anamensis (Leakey, et al. 1995, cited under Origins of Australopithecus), A. afarensis (Johanson, et al. 1978), A. garhi (Asfaw, et al. 1999), and A. deyiremeda (Haile-Selassie, et al. 2015). Some researchers also recognize A. bahrelghazali from Chad (Brunet 1996), but others consider this species a variation of A. afarensis. The species Kenyanthropus platyops (Leakey, et al. 2001) adds to the diversity of known hominins during the Pliocene, but its status as a separate species is not universally accepted (White 2003).
  248.  
  249. Asfaw, Berhane, Tim D. White, C. Owen Lovejoy, et al. 1999. Australopithecus garhi: A new species of early hominid from Ethiopia. Science 284:629–635.
  250. DOI: 10.1126/science.284.5414.629Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  251. Australopithecus garhi was found in the Afar of Ethiopia, about 100 kilometers from the Hadar site. Dated to about 2.5 million years ago, the species described in this article presented a surprising combination of dental characteristics, including very large molars and very large anterior teeth.
  252. Find this resource:
  253. Berger, Lee R., Darryl J. de Ruiter, Steven E. Churchill, et al. 2010. Australopithecus sediba: A new species of Homo-like australopith from South Africa. Science 328:195–204.
  254. DOI: 10.1126/science.1184944Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  255. A recently added species to the hominin evolutionary tree consists of a series of remarkably complete skeletons discovered in a South African cave in 2008. The specimens have some characteristics indicative of the genus Australopithecus, and some indicative of the genus Homo, but the researchers decided to place the new species within Australopithecus.
  256. Find this resource:
  257. Brunet, Michel. 1996. Australopithecus bahrelghazali, une nouvelle espèce d’Hominidé ancien de la région de Koro Toro (Tchad). Comptes Rendus de l’Académie de Sciences 322:907–913.
  258. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  259. The Chad Pliocene fossils are important not only in possibly representing a different species of Australopithecus from those in eastern Africa but also in highlighting that other parts of Africa, far from the Rift Valley, also have an important, even critical, contribution to make to our understanding the evolution and biogeography of early hominins.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Dart, Raymond. 1925. Australopithecus africanus: The man-ape of South Africa. Nature 115:195–199.
  262. DOI: 10.1038/115195a0Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  263. Raymond Dart proposes the new genus and species, Australopithecus africanus, and shifts (albeit slowly) paleoanthropological attention about human origins from Eurasia to Africa. He also suggests that the earliest hominins acquired their key adaptations as they shifted from the forest to the savanna. This version of the savanna hypothesis has taken many forms and continues to be debated in paleoanthropology. The precise age of this fossil was never well established, but today researchers think that most members of this species lived between about three and two million years ago.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Haile-Selassie, Yohannes, Luis Gibert, Stephanie M. Melillo, et al. 2015. New species from Ethiopia further expands Middle Pliocene hominin diversity. Nature 521:483–488.
  266. DOI: 10.1038/nature14448Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  267. The Afar region of Ethiopia is a key source of hominin and other vertebrate fossils. In 2015, Ethiopian paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie described a new species of Australopithecus from the Afar: A. deyiremeda, well dated by radiometric and paleomagnetic methods to the interval between 3.6 and 3.3 million years ago. This species confirms that during this interval there were at least three, and possibly four or five hominin species in Africa (Au. afarensis, Au. deyiremeda, Au. bahrelghazali, Kenyanthropus platyops, and possibly South African Australopithecus).
  268. Find this resource:
  269. Johanson, Donald C., Tim D. White, and Yves Coppens. 1978. A new species of the genus Australopithecus (Primates: Hominidae) from the Pliocene of eastern Africa. Kirtlandia 28:1–14.
  270. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  271. Johanson and colleagues name the new species, Australopithecus afarensis, based on fossils from Hadar in Ethiopia and Laetoli in Tanzania.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Leakey, Meave G., Fred Spoor, Francis H. Brown, et al. 2001. New hominin genus from eastern Africa shows diverse middle Pliocene lineages. Nature 410:433–440.
  274. DOI: 10.1038/35068500Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  275. The important fossils described in this article present evidence of another species alongside Australopithecus afarensis in East Africa at about 3.4 million years ago. The naming of a new genus and species by the authors generated controversy, as noted in the article by White 2003.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. White, Tim D. 2003. Early hominids: Diversity or distortion? Science 299:1994–1997.
  278. DOI: 10.1126/science.1078294Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  279. Tim White argues that the new genus and species described by Leakey, et al. 2001 is really just another example of Australopithecus afarensis and that the distortion of the specimen caused during fossilization gives the impression of morphology that is taphonomic rather than biological.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Ecological Context of Australopithecus
  282.  
  283. The genus Australopithecus was widely distributed in Africa, from the East African Rift Valley to the Chad Basin and the southernmost latitudes of the continent. These hominins are associated with rich geological and paleontological evidence that provides a complex picture of the environments in which these hominins lived and died. Studies of stable isotopes in fossil soils and teeth have become a crucial component of the evidence illuminating the kinds of vegetation present where hominins were evolving and the kinds of resources that hominins and other contemporaneous species were consuming. Current evidence indicates that the earliest Australopithecus around four million years ago lived in mosaic habitats that included woodlands and grasslands (Cerling, et al. 2011), but the species A. anamensis had a diet characteristic of species using woodland resources (Cerling, et al. 2013). By 3.76 million years ago, hominins began to shift toward dietary resources from more open grassy habitats (Cerling, et al. 2013; Lee-Thorp, et al. 2012; Levin, et al. 2015), although they were still occupying mosaic environments (Wynn, et al. 2006). Mosaic environments also predominated in southern Africa (Avery 2001) where Australopithecus species had a mixed diet that included resources from C3 and C4 habitats (Sponheimer and Lee-Thorp 1999). The time around 3.4 million years ago also had the earliest evidence of hominins accessing animal resources with stone tools (McPherron, et al. 2010) as well as the earliest record of the tools themselves (Harmand, et al. 2015).
  284.  
  285. Avery, Margaret. 2001. The Plio-Pleistocene vegetation and climate of Sterkfontein and Swartkrans, South Africa, based on micromammals. Journal of Human Evolution 41.2: 113–132.
  286. DOI: 10.1006/jhev.2001.0483Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  287. An excellent article on the use of small mammals (e.g., rodents) to reconstruct the mosaic and complex paleoenvironments associated with Pliocene and Early Pleistocene South African hominins.
  288. Find this resource:
  289. Cerling, Thure E., Fredrick Kyalo Manthi, Emma N. Mbua, et al. 2013. Stable isotope-based diet reconstructions of Turkana Basin hominins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110.26: 10501–10506.
  290. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1222568110Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  291. Cerling and colleagues present a large data set of stable isotopes from fossil hominins that shows a dietary shift from C3 resources in the earlier species Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus anamensis (4.4 to 3.9 million years ago) to a mix of C3 and C4 resources in the later species beginning with Kenyanthropus platyops (about 3.4 million years ago).
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Cerling, Thure E., Jonathan G. Wynn, Samuel A. Andanje, et al. 2011. Woody cover and hominin environments in the past 6 million years. Nature 476:51–56.
  294. DOI: 10.1038/nature10306Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295. A landmark paper based on stable isotopes from fossil soils showing that for the past six million years most hominin sites ocurred in environments characterized by less than 40 percent wood cover.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Harmand, Sonia, Jason E. Lewis, Craig S. Feibel, et al. 2015. 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya. Nature 521.7552: 310–315.
  298. DOI: 10.1038/nature14464Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. The authors present evidence for the earliest stone tools. These were found at Lomekwi, west of Lake Turkana in Kenya, and include large flakes and possibly pounding tools. The Lomekwi tools, along with the stone-tool modified bones from Dikika, are part of an important shift in behavior and ecology associated with Australopithecus and other contemporaneous taxa (e.g., Kenyanthropus).
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Lee-Thorp, Julia, Andossa Likius, Hassane T. Mackaye, et al. 2012. Isotopic evidence for an early shift to C4 resources by Pliocene hominins in Chad. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109.50: 20369–20372.
  302. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1204209109Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  303. Hominins from the Chad Basin were consuming a mix of dietary resources from both C3 and C4 plants about 3.4 million years ago, much like other hominins in eastern Africa at that time.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Levin, Naomi E., Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Stephen R. Frost, et al. 2015. Dietary change among hominins and cercopithecids in Ethiopia during the early Pliocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112.40: 12304–12309.
  306. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1424982112Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307. The evidence presented here shows that by 3.76 million years ago hominins and the monkey Theropithecus in the Afar of Ethiopia were beginning to shift their diets to include more resources from C4 habitats.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. McPherron, Shannon P., Zeresenay Alemseged, Curtis W. Marean, et al. 2010. Evidence for stone-tool-assisted consumption of animal tissues before 3.39 million years ago at Dikika, Ethiopia. Nature 466.7308: 857–860.
  310. DOI: 10.1038/nature09248Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  311. Fossil mammal bones at the site of Dikika show the earliest evidence of cut marks and percussion marks produced by lithic artifacts. Artifact-modified bones like those from Dikika become more common in the fossil record beginning at about 2.5 million years ago, and finding them at the early age of 3.4 million years ago was a major surprise in paleoanthropology.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Sponheimer, Matt, and Julia A. Lee-Thorp. 1999. Isotopic evidence for the diet of an early hominid, Australopithecus africanus. Science 283 (15 January): 368–370.
  314. DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5400.368Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  315. This was a pioneering study of stable isotopes in fossil hominin teeth. The evidence showed that South African Australopithecus had a mixed diet that included a surprising proportion of resources from open habitats.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Wynn, Jonathan, Zeresenay Alemseged, René Bobe, et al. 2006. Geological and paleontological context of a Pliocene juvenile hominin at Dikika, Ethiopia. Nature 443:332–336.
  318. DOI: 10.1038/nature05048Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  319. This paper describes the geological setting and the vertebrate fossils associated with a juvenile Australopithecus afarensis. It provides evidence of well-watered mosaic paleoenvironments associated with this pivotal species.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. The Genus Paranthropus
  322.  
  323. Paranthropus robustus was first described by Rober Broom in 1938 based on fossil specimens from Kromdraai in South Africa (Broom 1938). This species dates from about two to one million years ago. An approximately contemporaneous species was later described by Louis Leakey in 1959 based originally on fossils from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania (Leakey 1959). The earliest species of the genus was described from fossils in Ethiopia (Arambourg and Coppens 1968). Current evidence indicates that Paranthropus occurred from about 2.7 to 1 million years ago. Paranthropus in South Africa seems to have inhabited mosaic environments with a significant proportion of woodlands (de Ruiter, et al. 2008) but in eastern Africa the genus is associated with more open environments than those of earlier hominin species (Suwa, et al. 2003). The diet of Paranthropus, specially in specimens from eastern Africa, reflects a high proportion of C4 resources (Cerling, et al. 2011; Sponheimer, et al. 2006). Even twenty-five years after its publication, the volume Evolutionary History of the “Robust” Australopithecines (Grine 1988) remains a key resource for those interested the origin, adaptations, and extinction of this fascinating branch of the human evolutionary tree.
  324.  
  325. Arambourg, C., and Y. Coppens. 1968. Decouverte d’un australopithecien nouveau dans les gisements de l’Omo (Ethiopie). South African Journal of Science 64:58–59.
  326. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  327. The French team exploring the lower Omo Valley in the 1960s discovered a robust hominin in East Africa, now called Paranthropus aethiopicus. This is the earliest of the Paranthopus species, ranging from about 2.7 to 2.3 million years ago.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Broom, R. 1938. The Pleistocene anthropoid apes of South Africa. Nature 142:377–379.
  330. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  331. After Dart published his description of Australopithecus africanus in South Africa in 1925 (Dart 1925, cited under the Diversity of Australopithecus), new fossils appeared in the South African caves, and these fossils had significantly larger teeth and more robust bones than those previously discovered. Robert Broom named the new genus and species, Paranthropus robustus, for these fossils.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Cerling, T. E., E. Mbua, F. M. Kirera, et al. 2011. Diet of Paranthropus boisei in the early Pleistocene of East Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108:9337–9341.
  334. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1104627108Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  335. A major surprise of recent stable isotope analysis of Paranthropus boisei dental enamel is the indication that this species was significantly reliant on C4 resources (i.e., resources found in tropical grasslands).
  336. Find this resource:
  337. de Ruiter, D. J., M. Sponheimer, and J. A. Lee-Thorp. 2008. Indications of habitat association of Australopithecus robustus in the Bloubank Valley, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 55:1015–1030.
  338. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.06.003Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  339. This study provides a good example of the use of faunal analysis to infer the habitat associations of the species Australopithecus (or Paranthropus) robustus.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Grine, F. E., ed. 1988. Evolutionary history of the “robust” australopithecines. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
  342. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343. This volume, even after twenty-five years, remains a rich source of data and ideas about the evolution of Paranthropus (sometimes this group is called the robust australopithecines).
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Leakey, L. S. B. 1959. A new fossil skull from Olduvai. Nature 184:491–493.
  346. DOI: 10.1038/184491a0Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347. The discovery of a robust hominin in Tanzania in 1959 shifted paleoanthropological attention to eastern Africa in the search for the earliest human ancestors. Louis Leakey first named the fossils Zinjanthropus boisei, but most researchers today include them in the genus Paranthropus. This species likely evolved directly from the earlier Paranthropus aethiopicus and dates from about 2.3 to 1.4 million years ago.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Sponheimer, Matt, Benjamin H. Passey, Darryl J. de Ruiter, et al. 2006. Isotopic evidence for dietary variability in the early hominin Paranthropus robustus. Science 314.5801: 980–982.
  350. DOI: 10.1126/science.1133827Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  351. The evidence presented in this paper indicates that South African Paranthropus was a dietary generalist capable of shifting its diet seasonally.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Suwa, Gen, Hideo Nakaya, Berhane Asfaw, et al. 2003. Plio-Pleistocene terrestrial mammal assemblage from Konso, southern Ethiopia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 23.4: 901–916.
  354. DOI: 10.1671/2469-15Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  355. Paranthropus boisei in eastern Africa occupied varied and complex environments, but overall these were more open than those occupied by earlier hominins and included an important proportion of grasslands.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Origins of Homo
  358.  
  359. Formally introduced by Linnaeus in 1758, the genus Homo has long been difficult to define (Wood and Baker 2011). Although researchers think that earliest Homo likely evolved from one of the species of Australopithecus, there is no consensus about which one is the direct ancestor. The oldest widely recognized species of our genus are H. habilis (Leakey, et al. 1964) and H. rudolfensis (Alexeev 1986;see also Wood 1992). The earliest record of these species is about 2.4 million years ago, but recent evidence points to an earlier origin of the genus, closer to 2.8 million years ago (Villmoare, et al. 2015). Geological and paleontological evidence indicates that Homo may have occurred in environments with greater proportions of grasslands than those frequented by species of Australopithecus (Bobe and Leakey 2009; DiMaggio, et al. 2015). The extent to which the set of adaptations of this genus contributed to its dispersal across the globe continues to be a central theme of paleoanthropology (Antón, et al. 2014).
  360.  
  361. Alexeev, V. P. 1986. The origin of the human race. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
  362. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  363. This is the paper that first suggests the name Homo rudolfensis for one of the earliest species of the genus based on specimens from Koobi Fora in Kenya. The name derives from the colonial name for Lake Turkana (Lake Rudolf).
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Antón, S. C., R. Potts, and L. C. Aiello. 2014. Evolution of early Homo: An integrated biological perspective. Science 345.
  366. DOI: 10.1126/science.1236828Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  367. In this review, Susan Antón and colleagues set forth a framework for the analysis of key adaptations associated with the genus Homo. The authors demonstrate that these adaptations did not arise as a single package but instead as consequences of shifting environments over a prolonged time.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Bobe, R., and M. G. Leakey. 2009. Ecology of Plio-Pleistocene mammals in the Omo-Turkana Basin and the emergence of Homo. In The first humans: Origins of the genus Homo. Edited by F. E. Grine, J. G. Fleagle, and R. E. Leakey, 173–184. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
  370. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-9980-9_15Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371. Faunal evidence from the Omo-Turkana Basin (Ethiopia and Kenya) indicates that the earliest species of the genus Homo occurred in areas of expanding grassland environments.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. DiMaggio, E. N., C. J. Campisano, J. Rowan, et al. 2015. Late Pliocene fossiliferous sedimentary record and the environmental context of early Homo from Afar, Ethiopia. Science 347:1355–1359.
  374. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa1415Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375. This paper documents the geological and paleoenvironmental context of the earliest specimens of Homo recovered to date. The data show that early Homo in the Afar lived in more open, grassy environments than those occupied earlier by Australopithecus in the same region.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Leakey, L. S. B., P. V. Tobias, and J. R. Napier. 1964. A new species of the genus Homo from Olduvai Gorge. Nature 202:7–9.
  378. DOI: 10.1038/202007a0Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  379. Louis Leakey and colleagues name a new species, Homo habilis, and they suggest that this species was responsible for making the abundant stone tools at Olduvai at about 1.8 million years ago.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Villmoare, B., W. H. Kimbel, C. Seyoum, et al. 2015. Early Homo at 2.8 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia. Science 347:1352–1355.
  382. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa1343Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. The latest discoveries of early Homo from the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia demonstrate that the genus originated at least by 2.8 million years ago. Prior to this discovery, the earliest specimens of Homo dated to 2.4 million years.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Wood, Bernard A. 1992. Origin and evolution of the genus Homo. Nature 355:783–790.
  386. DOI: 10.1038/355783a0Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  387. A landmark paper focusing on the anatomical features of the earliest species of Homo, H. habilis, and H rudolfensis.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Wood, Bernard, and Jennifer Baker. 2011. Evolution in the Genus Homo. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 42.1: 47–69.
  390. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-102209-144653Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391. A thoughtful review paper that discusses the different ways of definint the genus Homo. It includes paleontological and genetic evidence in tracing the evolutionary history of the human genus.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. First Dispersal Out of Africa
  394.  
  395. The first two-thirds of hominin evolution occurred in Africa alone. Shortly after 1.8 million years ago hominin sites begin to appear in western Asia (Ferring, et al. 2011) and then in East Asia (Zhu, et al. 2004) and Southeast Asia (Larick and Ciochon 2015). All of the hominin species found outside of Africa are attributed to the genus Homo. Although the exact timing and nature of these dispersals remains poorly understood (Dennell and Roebroeks 2005), it is clear that the spread of Homo from Africa into Eurasia is one of the most impressive examples of closely related species colonizing vast regions around the world. The ecological context of this dispersal is the topic of ongoing research (Ciochon 2010; Storm 2001; Potts and Teague 2010; Tappen, et al. 2007).
  396.  
  397. Ciochon, R. L. 2010. Divorcing hominins from the Stegodon-Ailuropoda fauna: New views on the antiquity of hominins in Asia. In Out of Africa I: The first hominin colonization of Eurasia. Edited by J. G. Fleagle, J. J. Shea, F. E. Grine, A. L. Baden, and R. E. Leakey, 111–126. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
  398. DOI: 10.1007/978-90-481-9036-2_8Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  399. Ciochon presents an interesting argument that hominins in the Pleistocene of East and Southeast Asia were not associated with forest faunas and that the hominins inhabited open environments outside of the heavily forested zones of the region.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Dennell, R., and W. Roebroeks. 2005. An Asian perspective on early human dispersal from Africa. Nature 438:1099–1104.
  402. DOI: 10.1038/nature04259Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  403. In this thoughtful essay, Dennell and Roebroeks point to the vastness of Asia as a major “unknown” in the search to understand hominin dispersals from Africa.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Ferring, Reid, Oriol Oms, Jordi Agustí, et al. 2011. Earliest human occupations at Dmanisi (Georgian Caucasus) dated to 1.85–1.78 Ma. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108.26: 10432–10436.
  406. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1106638108Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. The site of Dmanisi in the Georgian Caucasus is the earliest well-establised site containing hominin fossils. The site also has abundant lithic artifacts attributed to the Oldowan Industry, and a vertebrate fossil fauna with Eurasian affinities.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Larick, Roy, and Russell L. Ciochon. 2015. Early hominin biogeography in Island Southeast Asia. Evolutionary Anthropology 24.5: 185–213.
  410. DOI: 10.1002/evan.21460Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  411. Homo erectus first appears in Southeast Asia by about 1.7 million years ago, only a short time after the earliest appearance of hominins out of Africa. In this review article, Larick and Ciochon sythesize the rich contextual evidence of hominins in Southeast Asia, including discussions of dating, geomorphology, climate, and biogeography.
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Potts, R., and R. Teague. 2010. Behavioral and environmental background to “Out-of-Africa I” and the arrival of Homo erectus in East Asia. In Out of Africa I: The first hominin colonization of Eurasia. Edited by J. G. Fleagle, 67–85. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
  414. DOI: 10.1007/978-90-481-9036-2_5Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415. Homo erectus arrived in East Asia about 1.7 million years ago and spread over a wide range of environments shortly thereafter. In its dispersal out of Africa, it appears that Homo erectus did not disperse with other species of African mammals.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Storm, P. 2001. The evolution of humans in Australasia from an environmental perspective. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 171:363–383.
  418. DOI: 10.1016/S0031-0182(01)00254-1Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  419. The author discusses the role of biogeographic barriers (e.g., Wallacea) in assessing the dispersal of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens into Australasia.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Tappen, M., D. Lordkipanidze, M. Bukshianidze, and R. Ferring. 2007. Are you in or out (of Africa?). In Breathing life into fossils: Taphonomic studies in honor of C. K. Brain. Edited by T. R. Pickering, K. Schick, and N. Toth, 119–135. Gosport, IN: Stone Age Institute.
  422. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  423. An analysis of the fauna from the site of Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia, indicates that the hominins from that site at about 1.8 million years ago were associated with a Eurasian rather than African fauna.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Zhu, R. X., R. Potts, F. Xie, et al. 2004. New evidence on the earliest human presence at high northern latitudes in northeast Asia. Nature 431:559–562.
  426. DOI: 10.1038/nature02829Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. One of the earliest locations in Eurasia with lithic artifacts, the Nihewan Basin in China, provides evidence of hominin occupation in high northern latitudes, at 40 degrees North, by 1.66 million years ago.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Later Species of Homo
  430.  
  431. Current evidence indicates that after spreading out of Africa into Asia by 1.8 million years ago, hominins made their way into Europe at least by about 1.2 million years ago (Carbonell, et al. 2008). The earliest European colonizers may have belonged to the species Homo antecessor, well described from fossils at Sierra de Atapuerca in northern Spain (Bermúdez de Castro, et al. 1997). By about 600,000 years ago, the species Homo heidelbergensis, with origins in Africa, had spread into Europe, where it gave rise to the Neandertals (Finlayson and Carrión 2007; Harvati 2010; Stringer 2012). In Africa, Homo heidelbergensis was the likely ancestor of our own species, Homo sapiens, with an earliest record of nearly 200,000 years in Ethiopia (White, et al. 2003). By about 100,000 years ago, our species had made its way into eastern Asia (Liu, et al. 2015). Although Homo sapiens is the only hominin species remaining today, as late as 30,000 years ago there were other hominins still inhabiting parts of the globe, such as the enigmatic Homo floresiensis on the Island of Flores (Brown, et al. 2004) and the Denisovans in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia (Sawyer, et al. 2015).
  432.  
  433. Bermúdez de Castro, J. M., J. L. Arsuaga, E. Carbonell, et al. 1997. A hominid from the Lower Pleistocene of Atapuerca, Spain: Possible ancestor to Neandertals and modern humans. Science 276.5317: 1392–1395.
  434. DOI: 10.1126/science.276.5317.1392Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. The paleontological sites at Sierra de Atapuerca in northern Spain have been crucial in untangling the early history of human occupation in Europe. Between 1994 and 1996, at Gran Dolina level TD6 (Aurora stratum), researchers found fossil hominins dating to about 800,000 years ago and named a new species, Homo antecessor, a likely ancestor of both Neandertals and later species of Homo.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Brown, P., T. Sutikna, M. J. Morwood, et al. 2004. A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 431:1055–1061.
  438. DOI: 10.1038/nature02999Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. The world of paleoanthropology has been surprised by the discovery of this tiny hominin species dated to only 18,000 years ago. The “hobbits” are a species of Homo but with a very small brain.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Carbonell, Eudald, Jose M. Bermudez de Castro, Josep M. Pares, et al. 2008. The first hominin of Europe. Nature 452.7186: 465–469.
  442. DOI: 10.1038/nature06815Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. The earliest hominins and artifacts in Europe date to nearly 1.2 million years ago and likely belong to the species Homo antecessor. These specimens derive from level TE9 of the Sima del Elefante cave, Sierra de Atapuerca, in northern Spain.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Finlayson, C., and J. S. Carrión. 2007. Rapid ecological turnover and its impact on Neanderthal and other human populations. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 22:213–222.
  446. DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2007.02.001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. The Neanderthals lived in Europe and parts of Asia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene, and became extinct shortly after 30,000 years ago, during a time of significant climatic change and faunal turnover.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Harvati, Katerina. 2010. Neanderthals. Evolution: Education and Outreach 3.3: 367–376.
  450. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  451. An excellent review of the Neanderthals written for the general public. It includes discussions of key discoveries, geographic distribution, paleobiology, genetics, archeology, and behavior of our closest extinct relatives.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Liu, Wu, María Martinón-Torres, Yan-jun Cai, et al. 2015. The earliest unequivocally modern humans in southern China. Nature 526:696–699.
  454. DOI: 10.1038/nature15696Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  455. A sample of forty-seven human teeth of remarkably modern morphology was found in cave deposits dated to at least 80,000 years ago. These fossils represent the earliest appearance of our species in East Asia and predate the earliest appearance of Homo sapiens in Europe by about 40,000 years.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Sawyer, Susanna, Gabriel Renaud, Bence Viola, et al. 2015. Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences from two Denisovan individuals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112.51: 15696–15700.
  458. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  459. The Denisova Cave of southern Siberia has yielded a few fossils dating to some 30,000 to 50,000 years ago. DNA from these fossils indicates that these hominins were a distinct species closely related to Neanderthals and modern humans.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. White, T. D., B. Asfaw, D. DeGusta, et al. 2003. Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia. Nature 423:742–747.
  462. DOI: 10.1038/nature01669Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463. The earliest fossils attributed to our own species, Homo sapiens, come from the lower Omo Valley of Ethiopia and date to nearly 200,000 years ago. White and colleagues describe a series of well-preserved Homo sapiens specimens from the Afar dating to 160,000 years ago.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Stringer, Chris. 2012. The status of Homo heidelbergensis (Schoetensack 1908). Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 21.3: 101–107.
  466. DOI: 10.1002/evan.21311Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. The position of Homo heidelbergensis is pivotal for our understanding of human evolution in the Middle Pleistocene, the interval from 780,000 to 126,000 years ago. During this time, Homo neanderthalensis emerged in Europe while our own species, Homo sapiens, emerged in Africa. In this review, paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer explores the role of Homo heidelbergensis as the likely ancestor of later hominins.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Environmental Hypotheses of Human Evolution
  470.  
  471. Paleontology has played a key role in contributing data and ideas to explain the evolution of humans and other primates. Of particular importance are hypotheses that relate evolution to changes in climate or environments. Many researchers, including Charles Darwin, have suggested that humans evolved their key adaptations, including bipedalism, as they shifted their environments from tropical forests to open savannas (Dart 1925; Darwin 1871; see Bender, et al. 2012 for a historical review), but the savanna hypothesis continues to be hotly debated in paleoanthropology (Cerling, et al. 2011; Domínguez-Rodrigo 2014). Other currently debated hypotheses include Elisabeth Vrba’s turnover pulse hypothesis, which posits that changes toward more open environments came in pulses of environmental change, speciation, and extinction (Vrba 1985), and Rick Potts’s variability selection hypothesis (Potts 1998), which emphasizes environmental variability itself as a key motor in human evolution. Determining the extent of climate, tectonics, and environmental changes on human evolution continues to be an active topic of interdisciplinary research in the paleontology of human origins (National Research Council 2010).
  472.  
  473. Bender, Renato, Phillip V. Tobias, and Nicole Bender. 2012. The savannah hypotheses: Origin, reception and impact on paleoanthropology. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 34.1–2: 147–184.
  474. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  475. Bender and colleagues provide a thoughtful and readable historical review of one of the most influential concepts in the study of human evolution. This is an excellent starting point for those wishing to learn more about the current debates in paleoanthropology.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Cerling, Thure E., Jonathan G. Wynn, Samuel A. Andanje, et al. 2011. Woody cover and hominin environments in the past 6 million years. Nature 476:51–56.
  478. DOI: 10.1038/nature10306Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479. In their analysis of stable isotopes from fossil soils, Cerling and colleagues conclude that their observations are consistent with the savanna hypothesis, but there is still no consensus, as demonstrated in the following citation and the commentaries therein.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Dart, Raymond. 1925. Australopithecus africanus: The man-ape of South Africa. Nature 115:195–199.
  482. DOI: 10.1038/115195a0Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. In his description of Australopithecus africanus, Dart was explicit in his suggestion that the evolution of “man” required life in a “vast open country with occasionally wooded belts together with a relative scarcity of water.” This is one of the earliest formulations of what came to be known as the savanna hypothesis.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Darwin, Charles. 1871. The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. London: John Murray.
  486. DOI: 10.5962/bhl.title.110063Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. Darwin was among the earliest naturalists to suggest that humans evolved as a consequence of a shift from arboreal to terrestrial life or implicitly from life in the forests to life in more open environments.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Domínguez-Rodrigo, Manuel. 2014. Is the “savanna hypothesis” a dead concept for explaining the emergence of the earliest hominins? Current Anthropology 55.1: 59–81.
  490. DOI: 10.1086/674530Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  491. This essay and the following commentaries present multiple points of view about the validity of the savanna hypothesis. It is clear that there is still no consensus about the environments in which early hominins evolved some of their hallmark characteristics, including bipedalism.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. National Research Council. 2010. Understanding climate’s influence on human evolution. Washington, DC: National Academies.
  494. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  495. The Committee on the Earth System Context for Hominin Evolution of the National Academies published this framework for understanding past ecosystems and their role in shaping the evolution of our species.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Potts, R. 1998. Variability selection in hominid evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology 7:81–96.
  498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499. Using paleontological data, Rick Potts elaborates the variability selection hypothesis, suggesting that some species become well adapted to change itself rather than to specific habitats. The variability selection hypothesis has been very influential and generated important debates in the world of paleoanthropology.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Vrba, E. S. 1985. Ecological and adaptive changes associated with early hominid evolution. In Ancestors: The Hard Evidence. Edited by E. Delson, 63–71. New York: Alan R. Liss.
  502. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  503. Elisabeth Vrba wrote a series of papers in the 1980s that documented important faunal changes (mostly among bovids) in Africa at about 2.5 million years ago. She noted that these episodes of faunal turnover (with many speciation and extinction events taking place during geologicallly short intervals) coincided with the origins of our genus, Homo. Vrba proposes that these turnover events and the origins of Homo were causally linked to global changes in climate. The turnover pulse hypotheses has been very influential, and, even if many researchers do not accept it, it is clear that it has generated important research in the last thirty years.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Taphonomy and Conservation Paleobiology
  506.  
  507. Studies of the paleoecology of extinct species are typically built on an understanding the taphonomic context of the fossils (Behrensmeyer, et al. 2000). Taphonomy refers to the processes that lead to bone preservation, burial, mineralization, and subsequent exposure and collection. Taphonomy has played a central role in shaping our current understanding of the habitats in which early hominins lived and died and the ecological relationships of hominins to other species (e.g., Behrensmeyer, et al. 2007; Blumenschine, et al. 1994; Brain 1981; Fernández-Jalvo, et al. 2011; Thompson, et al. 2015). But taphonomy is not only about understanding the past; it is also playing an increasingly important role in conservation biology. By providing a baseline of biotic conditions in the recent past, taphonomic studies are guiding conservation efforts for the future (Dietl, et al. 2015; Terry 2010).
  508.  
  509. Behrensmeyer, A. K., R. Bobe, and Z. Alemseged. 2007. Approaches to the analysis of faunal change during the East African Pliocene. In Hominin Environments in the East African Pliocene: An assessment of the faunal evidence. Edited by R. Bobe, Z. Alemseged, and A. K. Behrensmeyer, 1–24. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
  510. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  511. The authors consider different scales of faunal evidence and stratigraphic resolution to address methodological issues in the collection and analysis of vertebrate fossils in East African sites.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Behrensmeyer, Anna K., Susan M. Kidwell, and Robert A. Gastaldo. 2000. Taphonomy and paleobiology. Paleobiology 26.4(Suppl): 103–147.
  514. DOI: 10.1666/0094-8373(2000)26[103:TAP]2.0.CO;2Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. This review article provides a synthesis of taphonomic research and its contribution to paleobiology. Although not focused on hominins or other primates, the paper highlights processes that are essential for an understanding of the hominin fossil record.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Blumenschine, R. J., J. A. Cavallo, and S. D. Capaldo. 1994. Competition for carcasses and early hominid behavioral ecology: A case study and conceptual framework. Journal of Human Evolution 27:197–213.
  518. DOI: 10.1006/jhev.1994.1042Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  519. Blumenschine and colleagues bring together taphonomy and zooarcheology to bear on conceptual issues to understand how Plio-Pleistocene African hominins used their landscapes and interacted with other species.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Brain, C. K. 1981. The Hunters or the Hunted? An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
  522. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  523. This landmark book shifts ideas about the hunting prowess of early humans to show that they were often the prey of other species. The book provides a detailed study of how bones became part of the fossil record of an Early Pleistocene cave in South Africa and what these bones can teach us about the interactions of extinct species, including hominins and large carnivores.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Dietl, Gregory P., Susan M. Kidwell, Mark Brenner, et al. 2015. Conservation paleobiology: Leveraging knowledge of the past to inform conservation and restoration. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 43.1: 79–103.
  526. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-earth-040610-133349Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  527. The bones of recently living vertebrates may be considered as “fossils in the making” and can provide answers to questions about the recent past of modern ecosystems: what species lived in this ecosystem a few decades or centuries ago? Were the same species dominant in the past as they may be today? Have species shifted their geographic ranges relative to earlier times? Answers to these questions can help guide current conservation and restoration efforts across ecosystems.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Fernández-Jalvo, Yolanda, L. Scott, and Peter Andrews. 2011. Taphonomy in palaeoecological interpretations. Quaternary Science Reviews 30.11–12: 1296–1302.
  530. DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.07.022Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  531. This paper emphasizes that taphonomy is not just about the information that is lost during the processes of fossilization; instead, taphonomy is also critical in building a dynamic view of paleontological sites and the fossils that compose them.
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Thompson, Jessica C., Shannon P. McPherron, René Bobe, et al. 2015. Taphonomy of fossils from the hominin-bearing deposits at Dikika, Ethiopia. Journal of Human Evolution 86:112–135.
  534. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.06.013Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  535. This paper provides an in-depth study of fossils from the site of Dikika, where the oldest stone-tool modified bones were found in 2009. One of the key methodological innovations presented here is the random sampling of fossils from the site, which allows for strong assessments of different kinds of bone modification by different agents (carnivores, stone tools, trampling, etc.).
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Terry, Rebecca C. 2010. The dead do not lie: Using skeletal remains for rapid assessment of historical small-mammal community baselines. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 277.1685: 1193–1201.
  538. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1984Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  539. The study of recent bone assemblages is providing new ways to obtain geohistorical records of how animal communities have responded to climatic change in scales of decades to centuries to millennia. This paper shows that small-mammal skeletal death-assemblages are able to capture the structure and composition of the communities they come from and can thus be used to establish past ecosystem baselines to assess current environmental change.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Primate Origins
  542.  
  543. Humans are primates, and understanding primate origins is an important part of anthropology. The fossil record plays a key role in contributing direct evidence for how and when primates first evolved on Earth. This section highlights key papers that contribute theoretical perspectives to our understanding why primates first evolved (Cartmill 1974; Rosenberger 2013; Sussman, et al. 2013). Also, questions of when, where, and from what species primates first evolved continue to be central to research on primate paleontology (Bloch and Boyer 2002; Kirk, et al. 2003; Martin, et al. 2007; Ravosa and Dagosto 2007; Silcox, et al. 2015).
  544.  
  545. Bloch, Jonathan I., and Doug M. Boyer. 2002. Grasping primate origins. Science 298:1606–1610.
  546. DOI: 10.1126/science.1078249Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  547. After the extinction of the dinosaurs, several groups of mammals began to flourish during an epoch called the Paleocene (sixty-six to fifty-five million years ago). The authors of the paper describe well-preserved fossils of a group of mammals called the plesiadapiforms, which thrived during the Paleocene. These plesiadapiforms apparently had nails instead of claws in their big toe, and this distinctly primate characteristic suggests that plesiadapiforms where close to the ancestry of the true primates.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Cartmill, Matt. 1974. Rethinking primate origins. Science 184:436–443.
  550. DOI: 10.1126/science.184.4135.436Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551. In the early 1970s Matt Cartmill developed the visual predation hypothesis, which posits that the last common ancestor of all living primates was a nocturnal visual predator of insects and occupied the fine terminal branches of trees.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Kirk, E. Christopher, Matt Cartmill, Richard F. Kay, and Pierre Lemelin. 2003. Comment on “Grasping primate origins.” Science 300:741b.
  554. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  555. Controversy, debate, and eventual resolution are important aspects of science, and paleontology is no exception. In this commentary the authors criticize the analysis of Bloch and Boyer 2002 for being limited to postcranial bones and dispute their interpretations. Kirk and colleagues indicate that craniodental evidence places tree shrews (Scandentia) rather than plesiadapiforms as the closest group to the primates.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Martin, Robert D., Christoph Soligo, and S. Tavaré. 2007. Primate origins: Implications of a Cretaceous ancestry. Folia Primatologica 78:277–296.
  558. DOI: 10.1159/000105145Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. Most researchers agree that the earliest fossil record of true primates (euprimates) dates to about fifty-five million years ago, and most think that primates first evolved sometime after the extinction of the dinosaurs some sixty-six million years ago. The authors present a controversial view that primates originated prior to the extinction of the dinosaurs. The conclusions are based in part on the idea that an incomplete fossil record may obscure significant intervals in the evolution of the primates and other mammals.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Ravosa, Matthew J., and Marian Dagosto, eds. 2007. Primate origins: Adaptation and evolution. New York: Springer Science.
  562. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  563. This volume includes twenty chapters covering the paleontology and genetics of primate origins. The breadth and depth of topics make this volume an indispensable companion to the study of the origins of the order Primates.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Rosenberger, Alfred L. 2013. Fallback foods, preferred foods, adaptive zones, and primate origins. American Journal of Primatology 75.9: 883–890.
  566. DOI: 10.1002/ajp.22162Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  567. Rosenberger uses a model of primate diets and positional behavior to argue that the first primates likely evolved to take advantage of angiosperm resources rather than insect prey in the trees, thus supporting the primate/angiosperm co-evolution hypothesis.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Silcox, Mary, Eric Sargis, Jonathan Bloch, et al. 2015. Primate origins and supraordinal relationships: Morphological evidence. In Handbook of paleoanthropology. Vol. 2, Primate evolution and human origins. Edited by Winfried Henke and Ian Tattersall, 1053–1081. Berlin: Springer.
  570. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  571. The order Primates is closely related to the tree shrews (order Scandentia) and the colugos (order Dermoptera). The earliest primates in the fossil record appear early in the Cenozoic, almost sixty-five million years ago. This order of mammals most likely originated to take advantage of resources in newly diversifying angiosperms.
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Sussman, Robert W., D. Tab Rasmussen, and Peter H. Raven. 2013. Rethinking primate origins again. American Journal of Primatology 75.2: 95–106.
  574. DOI: 10.1002/ajp.22096Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  575. Sometimes called the primate/angiosperm co-evolution hypothesis, this idea suggests that primates evolved to take advantage of resources (fruits, insects) often found in the terminal branches of trees in the tropical rain forest.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Paleogene Primates
  578.  
  579. The Paleogene is the earlier part of the Cenozoic and dates from about sixty-six million years ago to about twenty-four million years ago. The Paleogene is the time that follows the extinction of the dinosaurs and includes the Paleocene, Eocene, and Oligocene epochs. The fossil record currently indicates that the earliest primates (plesiadapiforms) originated at the beginning of the Cenozoic (see the section Primate Origins), but “true” primates (Euprimates) first appear in the fossil record of the Early Eocene, some fifty-five million years ago (Ni, et al. 2004). Early prosimians include the most complete fossil primate ever found from the Eocene of Germany (Franzen et al. 2009). Anthropoid primates, those that include monkeys, apes, and humans, also arose in the Eocene, but the place and timing of their origin continues to be debated (Bajpai, et al. 2008; Miller, et al. 2005; Seiffert 2012; Tabuce, et al. 2009). The earliest fossil record of apes and Old World monkeys derives from the latest Oligocene of Tanzania (Stevens, et al. 2013), while the earliest New World monkeys come from the Eocene of Perú (Bond, et al. 2015).
  580.  
  581. Bajpai, Sunil, Richard F. Kay, Blythe A. Williams, et al. 2008. The oldest Asian record of Anthropoidea. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105.32: 11093–11098.
  582. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0804159105Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  583. New fossils from India dating to the early Eocene support the idea that early anthropoids originated in Asia.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Bond, Mariano, Marcelo F. Tejedor, Kenneth E. Campbell, Jr., et al. 2015. Eocene primates of South America and the African origins of New World monkeys. Nature 520:538–541.
  586. DOI: 10.1038/nature14120Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  587. The authors note, “The time and place of platyrrhine origins are some of the most controversial issues in primate palaeontology.” New data from the Amazon of Peru show that platyrrhine monkeys were already in South America by the Late Eocene and that these primates bear close resemblance to Eocene anthropoids from Africa.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Franzen, Jens L., Philip D. Gingerich, Jörg Habersetzer, et al. 2009. Complete primate skeleton from the middle Eocene of Messel in Germany: Morphology and paleobiology. PLoS ONE 4.5: e5723.
  590. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  591. Although its phylogenetic position is disputed, there is no doubt that Darwinius masillae is one of the most complete fossil primates ever discovered. Dated to forty-seven million years ago, it is an early member of the clade that includes lemurs.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Miller, Ellen R., Gregg F. Gunnell, and Robert D. Martin. 2005. Deep time and the search for anthropoid origins. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 128.S41: 60–95.
  594. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.20352Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  595. A thorough review of current hypotheses of anthropoid origins, suggesting that an African origin for the group is the most likely scenario.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Ni, Xijun, Yuanqing Wang, Yaoming Hu, et al. 2004. A euprimate skull from the early Eocene of China. Nature 427:65–68.
  598. DOI: 10.1038/nature02126Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  599. The authors describe fossils of the genus Teilhardina, a tarsioid primate with a bony ring around the orbits and forward-facing eyes that lived about fifty-five million years ago. The species Teilhardina asiatica would have weighed a mere twenty-eight grams, and is closely related to a European species, suggesting biogeographic connections between Asia and Europe during this time.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. Seiffert, Erik R. 2012. Early primate evolution in Afro-Arabia. Evolutionary Anthropology 21.6: 239–253.
  602. DOI: 10.1002/evan.21335Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  603. An excellent review of the fossil evidence and biogeography of the earliest primates, with a focus on Afro-Arabia and the discoveries of field paleontologists.
  604. Find this resource:
  605. Stevens, Nancy J., Erik R. Seiffert, Patrick M. O’Connor, et al. 2013. Palaeontological evidence for an Oligocene divergence between Old World monkeys and apes. Nature 497.7451: 611–614.
  606. DOI: 10.1038/nature12161Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  607. Research on the western branch of the East African Rift System has produced late Oligocene faunas (about twenty-five million years old) that include the earliest apes and Old World monkeys.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Tabuce, Rodolphe, Laurent Marivaux, Renaud Lebrun, et al. 2009. Anthropoid versus strepsirhine status of the African Eocene primates Algeripithecus and Azibius: Craniodental evidence. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 276.1676: 4087–4094.
  610. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1339Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  611. This paper addresses a key debate in paleoprimatology: Where did anthropoid primates originate? Anthropoids include humans, apes, and monkeys. The authors indicate that fossils from Algeria that had previously been identified as early anthropoids are, in fact, early strepsirhines (the group that includes modern lemurs and lorises). This evidence weakens the arguments that suggest an African origin for anthropoids.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Neogene and Quaternary Primates
  614.  
  615. The Neogene includes the Miocene and Pliocene epochs of the Cenozoic, from about 24 million years to about 2.6 million years ago, and the Quaternary refers to the time from 2.6 million years to about 11,000 years ago. The Miocene was a time of major diversification of apes (Begun 2015), but ape diversity declined along with cooling climates during the Late Miocene (Agustí, et al. 1999; Chaimanee, et al. 2004). Old World monkeys diversified during the Pliocene and Pleistocene (Eronen and Rook 2004; Frost 2007; Harrison, et al. 2006; Jablonski, et al. 2000) and remain a highly diverse superfamily of the primates. New World monkeys underwent multiple episodes of evolutionary diversification during the Miocene (Hodgson, et al. 2009).
  616.  
  617. Agustí, Jordi, Lorenzo Rook, and Peter Andrews, eds. 1999. Evolution of Neogene terrestrial ecosystems in Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  618. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  619. This edited volume includes chapters on the climate, biogeography, mammals, and environments of the Miocene and Pliocene.
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Begun, David R. 2015. Fossil record of Miocene hominoids. In Handbook of paleoanthropology. Edited by W. Henke and I. Tattersall, 1261–1332. Berlin: Springer.
  622. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-39979-4_32Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  623. One of the foremost experts on the evolution of Miocene apes, David Begun documents the tremendous diversity and evolutionary trends of fossil ape species.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. Chaimanee, Yaowalak, Varavudh Suteethorn, Pratueng Jintasakul, et al. 2004. A new orang-utan relative from the Late Miocene of Thailand. Nature 427.6973: 439–441.
  626. DOI: 10.1038/nature02245Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  627. A fossil mandible from Thailand shows that orang-utan ancestors were living in tropical forests during the late Miocene.
  628. Find this resource:
  629. Eronen, Jussi T., and Lorenzo Rook. 2004. The Mio-Pliocene European primate fossil record: Dynamics and habitat tracking. Journal of Human Evolution 47.5: 323–341.
  630. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2004.08.003Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  631. In the European Mio-Pliocene, primates remain tied to relatively closed habitats with plenty of trees, even though continental environments were becoming generally more open.
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  633. Frost, Stephen R. 2007. African Pliocene and Pleistocene cercopithecid evolution and global climatic change. In Hominin environments in the East African Pliocene: An assessment of the faunal evidence. Edited by R. Bobe, Z. Alemseged, and A. K. Behrensmeyer, 51–76. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
  634. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  635. In an extensive analysis of late Cenozoic fossil monkeys from Africa, Steve Frost concludes that cercopithecoids undergo relatively constant rates of turnover (speciation and extinction) during the past four million years.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. Harrison, Terry, John Krigbaum, and Jessica Manser. 2006. Primate biogeography and ecology on the Sunda Shelf Islands: A paleontological and zooarchaeological perspective. In Primate biogeography. Edited by Shawn M. Lehman and John G. Fleagle, 331–372. Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects. New York: Springer.
  638. DOI: 10.1007/0-387-31710-4_12Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  639. The Sunda area of southeast Asia is a center of modern primate diversity. Harrison and colleagues argue that by the latest Pliocene, several primates had dispersed into this region, including Pongo (orang-utan), Hylobates (gibbons), Presbytis (langurs), and Nasalis (proboscis monkey).
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  641. Hodgson, J. A., K. N. Sterner, L. J. Matthews, et al. 2009. Successive radiations, not stasis, in the South American primate fauna. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106:5534–5539.
  642. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0810346106Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  643. Genetics in combination with paleontology provides an estimate of about twenty million years ago for the last common ancestor of the living platyrrhine primates. But there are fossil platyrrhines that are nearly thirty-five million years old. This suggests that some of the earliest platyrrhines are part of an early radiation in South America and that most of these earliest species became extinct.
  644. Find this resource:
  645. Jablonski, Nina G., Matthew J. Whitfort, Nola Roberts-Smith, et al. 2000. The influence of life history and diet on the distribution of catarrhine primates during the Pleistocene in eastern Asia. Journal of Human Evolution 39.2: 131–157.
  646. DOI: 10.1006/jhev.2000.0405Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  647. In eastern Asia, monkeys responded very differently to Pleistocene climatic change compared to hominoids.
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