Chapter 8
Primate and Hominin Origins
Ancestor to Primates?
• What is ancestral to all the critters under the
Order Primates?
• Where all the humans, australopithicines,
monkeys, apes, homo habilis, tarsiers, lorises,
aye-ayes, Neandertals, etc. came from…
Primates Review
Me too!
*Go back to the chart on pg. 129
The end of the Cretaceous period
65.5 mya
• Millions of years ago right after the dinosaurs
died…
Paleocene 65 mya
Placental mammal radiation
• Earliest primates
Eocene 55-35mya
• More than 200 recognized fossil
primate species.
Eocene 55-35 mya
• More than 200 recognized fossil
species.
Darwinius, from the
Messel site in
Germany, discovered in
2009 and dates to ~47
mya.
Eocene Primates
• Foramen magnum position =
whether the body is habitually
horizontal (like a horse) or vertical
(like a monkey).
• During the Eocene, the foramen
magnum in some primate species
was beginning to move from the
back of the skull towards the
center.
• Suggesting…Holding their bodies
erect while hopping and sitting, like
modern lemurs, galagos, and
tarsiers.
Eocene Era primate and modern human skulls
Oligocene
• “Rafting” Africa-> South America
~34 mya early in the Oligocene
• By this early point in the
Oligocene, continental drift had
separated the New World from
the Old World.
• New and Old World monkeys
branch off here, 35 million years
ago.
Oligocene
• Approximate position of the continents during the beginning of the
Oligocene
Oligocene Primates from Fayum
• Apidium
– Primitive dental
arrangement suggests
near or before
evolutionary divergence
of Old and New World
anthropoids
– Small, squirrel-like fruit
and seed eating, adept at
leaping and springing
Walking with the
Beasts (BBC)
“Whale Killer”
Egypt’s Fayum
• Today, it’s a ~550 square
mile lush “oasis” basin in
the desert south of Cairo
• During the Eocene and
Oligocene, the Faiyum was
forrested
• At the beginning of the
Miocene, the Faiyum had
become a dry hollow
Oligocene Primates from Fayum
cont.
• Aegyptopithecus (genus)
– 35-33 mya
– Largest of Fayum
anthropoids, roughly the
size of a modern howler
monkey (13-18 lbs)
– Short-limbed, slowmoving
Miocene Hominoid Distribution, From Fossils
Thus Far Discovered
Miocene Hominoid Fossils
1. These hominoids are more closely related to the
ape-human lineage than Old World monkeys.
2. Mostly large-bodied hominoids, more akin to
the lineages of orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and
humans.
3. Most of the Miocene forms discovered are so
derived that they are probably not ancestral to any
living form.
Miocene Fossil Hominoids
African forms (23–14 mya)
–
Especially from western Kenya, these
hominoids are, in many ways, primitive.
–
Proconsul
Miocene Fossil Hominoids
European forms (16–11 mya)
–
From scattered localities in France, Spain, Italy,
Greece, Austria, Germany, and Hungary, most are
quite derived.
–
Dryopithecus and Ouranopithecus
Miocene Fossil Hominoids
Asian forms (16–7 mya)
–
The largest and most varied group from
Turkey through India/Pakistan and east to
southern China, most are highly derived.
–
Sivapithecus
Sivapithicus
Sivapithecus (from Turkey and Pakistan) shows facial
features similar to the modern orangutan,
suggesting a fairly close evolutionary link.
•
Note the dished face, broad cheekbones, and projecting upper jaw and incisors
on both Sivapithecus (left) and the Orangutan (right)