What is the place of Europe in the origin of humankind? Whilst our earliest human ancestors may have come out of Africa, many of our more recent ancestors, and those of other primates, left their fossil remains in Europe and the Near East. Hominoid primates including Dryopithecus in Spain and Hungary, Oreopithecus in Italy and Ouranopithecus in Greece flourished in the Miocene, between about 10-7 million years ago. This volume examines these and other hominoid fossils found in Eurasia and discusses what we can learn from them using biostratigraphic and ecological frameworks. In addition, new methods of analysing and visualising fossil hominoids are explored, including CT-based and computer-assisted virtual reconstruction of fossils to allow three-dimensional images of external and internal morphology of even fragmentary or distorted fossils. This volume will therefore be invaluable for practising palaeoanthropologists and palaeontologists whatever their specialism.
• Explores hominoid evolution after leaving Africa • Discusses and evaluates modern computer-aided technologies for fossil reconstruction in paleoanthropology • Links ecology to the evolutionary radiation of hominoids
Contents
Part I. Chronology and Environment: 1. Chronology and zoogeography of the Miocene hominoid record in Europe J. Agusti, L. Cabrera and M. Garcés; 2. The trophic context of hominoid occurrence in the Later Miocene of Western Eurasia - a primate-free view Mikael Fortelius and Arja Hokkanen; Part II. Methods and Phylogeny: 3. Computer-assisted morphometry of hominoid fossils: the role of morphometric maps Christoph P. E. Zollikofer and Marcia S. Ponce de Léon; 4. Comparative analysis of the iliac trabecular architecture in extant and fossil primates by means of digital image processing techniques: implications for the reconstruction of fossil locomotor behaviours Roberto Macchiarelli, Lorenzo Rook and Luca Bondioli; 5. Dental microwear and diet in Eurasian Miocene catarrhines Tania King; 6. How reliable are current estimates of fossil catarrhine phylogeny? An assessment using great apes and Old World monkeys Mark Collard and Bernard Wood; 7. Cranial discrete variation in the great apes: new prospects in palaeoprimatology José Braga; Part III. Miocene Hominoids: Function and Phylogeny: 8. Eurasian hominoid evolution in the light of recent Dryopithecus findings Meike Köhler, Salvador Moyà-Solà and David M. Alba; 9. Functional morphology of Ankarapithecus meteai Peter Andrews and Berna Alpagut; 10. African and Eurasian Miocene hominoids and the origins of the Hominidae D. R. Begun; 11. Phylogenetic relationships of Ouranopithecus macedoniensis (Mammalia, Primates, Hominoidea, Hominidae) of the late Miocene deposits of Central Macedonia (Greece) Louis de Bonis and George D. Koufos; 12. Phylogeny and sexually dimorphic characters: canine reduction in Ouranopithecus Jay Kelley; 13. Heterochrony and the cranial anatomy of Oreopithecus: some cladistic fallacies and the significance of developmental constraints in phylogenetic analysis D. M. Alba, S. Moyà-Solà, M. Köhler and L. Rook; 14. The Late Miocene hominoid from Georgia Leo Gabunia, Ekaterine Gabashvili, Abesalom Vekua and David Lordkipanidze; 15. Forelimb function, bone curvature and phylogeny of Sivapithecus Brian G. Richmond and Michael Whalen; 16. Sivapithecus and hominoid evolution: some brief comments David R. Pilbeam and Nathan M. Young.
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