Paleontological Field Work and Research on Eocene Anthropoids and other Primates from the People

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Living anthropoid or 'higher' primates include monkeys, apes and humans. Diverse lines of evidence from the fields of molecular biology, comparative anatomy, and paleontology demonstrate that higher primates are descendants of a single common ancestor, and that the higher primate lineage diverged from other primates (including the ancestors of living lemurs and tarsiers) very early in the Cenozoic Era. However, the fossil record of the early phases of anthropoid evolution is extremely poor. As a result, we do not know precisely when the earliest anthropoids lived, where the anthropoid lineage originated, how anthropoids fit on the evolutionary tree of primates, nor do we understand numerous aspects of their paleobiology. This project aims to fill this largest remaining gap in our knowledge of primate and human evolution by recovering new fossil primates from Eocene (55-34 million year old) sites in China. Laboratory studies of these fossils will provide new information on the critical evolutionary transition from primitive, prosimian-like primates to more advanced anthropoids. Several new taxa of early anthropoids will be described, and functional analyses of their teeth and skeletons will reveal a great deal about their paleobiology, including their dietary preferences and mode of locomotion.