中晚始新世及早渐新世基干类人猿在东亚地区的演化

类人猿是包括我们人类在内的动物类群，有关类人猿起源与早期演化的研究是古生物学领域的重要方向。最早的类人猿源自何方是学术界争论的焦点。亚洲一直被认为是类人猿最可能的发源地，在亚洲特别是在缅甸和中国曾发现了一些可能属于类人猿的化石，但这些化石还保留着非常原始的或非常特化的特征，与在北非发现的毫无争议的晚始新世和早渐新世的类人猿相比，两者之间还存在着巨大的形态学间断。本研究计划在纬度上与缅甸和北非类人猿化石地点更为接近的云南、广西、四川开展野外工作，已有的工作表明在这些区域最有可能发现代表类人猿早期演化缺失环节的化石；应用高精度CT技术揭示更深层次的形态特征；以大矩阵的全证据的系统学分析为基础，探讨基干类人猿之间、及其与其它灵长类之间的系统关系；通过对亚洲中晚始新世、早渐新世类人猿伴生哺乳动物群组成特征的研究，讨论晚始新世-早渐新世这一关键时期古环境变化与基干类人猿演化和扩散之间可能存在的耦合关系。

Anthropoids consist of a group that includes our human beings. Research on the origin and early evolution of anthropoids has long been a major subject of paleontology. The origin place of the earliest anthropoids has been persistently debated. It is widely suggested that Asia is the most possible place for the origin of anthropoids. In Asia, particularly in Myanmar and China, researchers have discovered some anthropoid-like primate fossils. However, these fossils show either very primitive or very specialized features when they are compared with the undoubted Late Eocene and Early Oligocene anthropoids from North Africa. Big morphological gap is present between the suggested Asian basal anthropoids and the undoubted North African anthropoids. This project is going to do fieldwork and search for the stem anthropoid fossils in Guangxi and Yunnan, where the latitude is close to the anthropoid fossil localities in Myanmar and North Africa. Our previous field surveys have suggested that these regions are the most possible places where we could find the fossils representing the missing link of the early evolution of anthropoids. By using the high-resolution CT technique, we are going to study the morphological details of the anthropoid fossils at a much deeper level. By carrying out phylogenetic analysis based on large total-evidenced data matrix, we are going to investigate the phylogenetic relationships among the stem anthropoids and other primates. And by analyzing the Middle-Late Eocene and Early Oligocene mammalian faunas accompanying the stem anthropoids from Guangxi and Yunnan, we are going to discuss on the potential correlations between the paleoenvironmental changes and the evolution and dispersal pattern of stem anthropoids.