Out of African and Dispersal into Eurasia by Hominoids from the Paleontological Perspective.

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This study has focused on the evolution of the Miocene hominoids as precursors of humans, especially in those ages when they went out of Africa and dispersed into Eurasia. In Africa, the head investigator (Y.Kunimatsu) has conducted his research on the Miocene fossil primates in Kenya. He extended his previous research further, and analyzed fossils of hominoids and cercopithecoids from the early Middle Miocene of East Africa.In Eurasia, the study emphasized the research of Asian Miocene hominoid fossils. Previously known Miocene fossil hominoids in Asia are mainly Sivapithecus from India and Pakistan, and Lufengpithecus from Yunnan Province, southwestern China. Although extant Asian hominoids like gibbons and orangutans live in Southeast Asia, studies of fossil hominoids have been rare in this region. Recently, however, new hominoid fossils have been recovered from the Miocene of Thailand, and fossil hominoid study in this region is now going to develop. Y.Kunimtasu analyzed the Asian … More Miocene hominoid fossils, in cooperation with researchers of other fields of research such as vertebrate paleontology, paleomagnetostratigraphy, and sedimentology.Thanks to the courtesy of Prof.G.Koufos of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Y.Kunimatsu also had an opportunity to investigate the fossils of Ouranopithecus macedoniensis from Greece. This large fossil hominoid is known from the early Late Miocene of Greece, and is considered to be closely related to the dispersal of hominoid primates, which occurred between Africa and Eurasia. Y.Kunimatsu observed and measured the O.macedoniensis specimens and compared them with the East African Miocene hominoids.In addition to the investigations of primate fossils, intraspecificvariationofextantprimatemorphology was also examined by using Japanese macaques as a model case, because understanding the morphological variations of extant taxa is crucial in interpreting fossils. An excellent osteological collection of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) is now available in Japan. Less