Chapter 6: Primate Evolution
• Introduction to the Primates• Why do anthropologists study primates?
– To understand human evolution by:• Homology
– The same adaptations in close relatives offer clues to design structures in ancestral and contemporary human populations (culture?)
• Analogy– How do other primates respond to the same
and different environmental pressures?
ANTH 101, Fall 2005, Exam 1
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Adaptive Radiation
• What was the niche?
• Birds and Mammals move into vacated Dino niches
• Early primates were common
• In Tropics implies that they were forest/tree dwellers
• Climate was warm and wet (rainforests)
Derived Traits
• Opposable Thumbs• Nails (no claws)• Hind limb dominated locomotion• Reduced sense of smell• Increase importance of sight (stereoscopic
vision)• Small litters• Large Brain• Unspecialized teeth
Two types (suborder):
• Prosimians: VCL, Lemurs (Madagascar), Aya-ayes, Lorises, & Galagos.
• Anthropoides: Old and New World Monkey and Apes (humans)
New World Monkeys
• Marmosets and tamarins (small bodied)– Twins– Polyandry– Monogamous families with alloparental care
• Others: – Howlers– Spider– Wooly– Squirrel– Capuchins (tool users)– Night monkeys (owl monkey)– others
Old World Monkeys
• Colobus & Lagurs (harems)
• Macaques, baboons & vervets (multi-male and multi-female, matrilocal)
• Apes– Derived traits
• Lack tails• Bigger brains• Y-Shaped pattern on lower molar
Great Apes:– Gorilla (knuckle walking, Africa,
polygamous harems)