Function, phylogeny, and fossils : miocene hominoid evolution and adaptations /

The hominoids (apes and humans, living and extinct) form a fascinating group for evolutionary study, especially because they include the human lineage. Although much recent work has been undertaken on the genetic interrelationships of the living hominoids (revealing that chimpanzees are genetically more similar to humans than either is to gorillas), it is only through the study of fossils that the more complete history and timing of evolutionary change can be understood. This volume, based on a 1993 symposium, brings together 18 papers (by 22 authors), which interpret fossil hominoids from their Miocene heyday (23-5 million years ago). During this interval, hominoids stretched from Namibia through Kenya to Arabia and from Spain across Eurasia to China. Most of the numerous fossils have been described in scientific journals, but these chapters bring together a series of high-quality papers focused on the combined study of their phylogeny (evolutionary history) and functional morphology (lifeways determined from bony evidence). There is no consensus about either aspect of many of these extinct apes, but the editors have summarized and reanalyzed much of the data presented, arriving at the relatively novel view that the ancestry of African apes and humans went through a European residency before returning to Africa in the Late Miocene. Highly recommended for all anthropological, paleontological, and general zoological collections, this book will be the baseline for 21st- century research on hominoid evolution. Undergraduates and up. E. Delson; CUNY Herbert H. Lehman College