ANTA01H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Simian, Mosaic Evolution, Oligocene
Document Summary
Postcranial - referring to all or part of the skeleton not including the skull. The term originates from the fact that in quadrupeds, the body is in back of the head; the term literally means behind the head. Large-bodied hominoids - those hominoids including the great apes (orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas) and hominins, as well as all ancestral forms back to the time of divergence from small-bodied hominoids (i. e. , the gibbon lineage). Mosaic evolution - a pattern of evolution in which the rate of evolution in one functional system varies from that in other systems. For example, in hominin evolution, the dental system, locomotor system, and neurological system (especially the brain) all evolved at markedly different rates. Bipedal locomotion - walking on two feet. Walking on two legs is the single most distinctive feature of the hominins. Habitual bipedalism - bipedal locomotion as the form of locomotion shown by hominins most of the time.
