Exploring for Paleogene Primates in Bolivia

该项目的主要目标是在南美洲的中第三纪寻找含有灵长类化石的地点。关于高等灵长类动物在旧大陆和新大陆出现的路径，长期以来一直存在争议。虽然在东半球已经有了重大发现，但对美洲早期高等灵长类进化的了解还很少。一个有待回答的主要问题是，原猴级别的灵长类动物是否在新旧大陆独立进化为猴子级别，或者这种情况是否只发生过一次。在后一种情况下，两者的最后共同祖先可能已经是猴子了。调查人员在玻利维亚发现了地质矿藏，这些矿藏显示出蕴藏着这一时期化石的希望。在玻利维亚地质调查局的协助下，他们将寻找这一时期的化石。

The primary objective of this project is to search for sites containing primate fossils from the middle Tertiary in South America. There has long been debate as to the path by which the higher primates appeared in the Old and New World. While there have been significant discoveries in the Old World, knowledge of early higher primate evolution in the Americas is scant. A principle question that remains to be answered is whether prosimian grade primates evolved into a monkey grade independently in the New and Old Worlds or whether this occurred once. In the latter case the last common ancestor of the two would have already have been monkey. The investigators have identified geological deposits in Bolivia which show promise of bearing fossils from this time period. With the assistance of the Bolivian Geological Survey they will search for fossils from this time period.