ANTH 203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Proconsul Africanus, Rusinga Island, Early Miocene
3 Jun 2012
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Document Summary
Apes are more common than monkeys in lower and middle miocene. Earliest apes are differentiated from monkeys by having the ape dental pattern. Theory on the origins: freed hands for increased tool use, freed hands for the use of weapons in hunting and/or the use of containers to transport plant foods obtained by gathering. Needing to free their hands to gathered vegetable foods. Males carrying food to provide for females/offsprings: female sexual selection of males with large, visible genitals. Impossible to test: to aid in avoiding predators, energy efficiency, radiator theory. Higher head allows you to see longer distances over the grass. Decreases exposure to the sun and helps keep the brain cool: continuation of an upright body posture inherent in a tree- climbing/brachiating adaptation. Earliest fossils appear to have been bipedal, with no clear evidence of a transition through a knuckle-walking stage.
