ARCH 131 Lecture Notes - Eutheria, Hominidae, Prototheria

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Archaeology
• Course: ARCH 131
• Professor: Dennis Sandgathe

Document Summary

Humans belong to the order primata, we are primates like monkeys and apes, and within the animal kingdom, and even just among mammals, primates are a very unique group. While humans possess some characteristics unique from other primates, we also have many of those characteristics that distinguish primates from all other species. Well, there are 2 main reasons: the first is that, as human"s closest living relatives in the animal kingdom, we share a recent evolutionary ancestry with all other primates especially with the great apes: chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. This means we all share a common adaptive past: aspects of anatomy and physiology, diet, and social behaviour. A lot of the specific processes of natural and sexual selection that are acting on different modern primate species are similar to those that likely played a role in our own emergence as a distinct human species.