ANT 2511 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Sivapithecus, Hominidae, Gigantopithecus
Document Summary
Why did primates emerge: arboreal hypothesis- primate traits such as grasping hands and binocular vision were adaptations to life in the trees. The tertiary: 65,000,000 to 2,000,000 years ago. Paleocene-proto primates (65 to 55 million years ago) Eocene- prosimian like primates (55 to 34 m. y. a) Paleoce(cid:374)e (cid:862)pri(cid:373)ates(cid:863): 65-55 m. y. a, plesiadapiforms, found in north america, europe, asia and possibly africa, possibly a separate order, but still potentially related. Eocene primates: 55-34 m. y. a, euprimates the first true primates, ancestral to modern prosimians, adapids-related to modern lemurs, omomyids- related to modern tarsiers. Oligocene primates: the oligocene was a period of global cooling and widespread plant and animal extinctions, anthropoids (monkeys) appear, and some prosimians survive, oligopithicids: at 35 mya, are the earliest anthropoids, branch into 2 families: propliopithecids and parapithecids. Propliopithecids- ancestors of catarrhines 2/1/2/3 dental includes apes. Fayum, egypt: most primate fossils from this period come from the fayum region of egypt.
