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Books Received
Primate-Science / PrimateLit


THE PRIMATE FOSSIL RECORD



Edited by

Walter Carl Hartwig
Touro University

Cambridge Studies in
Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology 33

Cambridge University Press 2002

FROM THE BACK COVER

The Primate Fossil Record is the first comprehensive treatment of primate paleontology 
in more than 20 years. Profusely illustrated and up to date, it captures the complete 
history of the discovery and interpretation of primate fossils. The chapters range from 
primate origins to the advent of anatomically modern humans. Each emphasizes three key 
components of the record of primate evolution: history of discovery, taxonomy of the 
fossils, and evolution of the adaptive radiations they represent. The Primate Fossil Record 
summarizes objectively the many intellectual debates surrounding the fossil record and 
provides a foundation of reference information on the last two decades of astounding 
discoveries and worldwide field research for physical anthropologists, paleontologists 
and evolutionary biologists.

Walter Hartwig is Associate Professor of Anatomy at Touro University College of 
Osteopathic Medicine in northern California. He has conducted paleontological field 
research in South America and Africa, and has authored over 40 scientific articles and 
book chapters on comparative anatomy, primate evolution and the history of sciences. 
Professor Hartwig is also founder and director of ibob.org, a non-profit organization 
dedicated to improving medical care, education and scientific research in underdeveloped 
countries.

CONTENTS

List of contributors      ix
Preface     xi
Acknowledgements     xii
Abbreviations     xiii

1. Introduction to The Primate Fossil Record      1
Walter Carl Hartwig

2. The origin of primates      5
David Tab Rasmussen

The earliest primates and the fossil record of prosimians      11

3. The earliest fossil primates and the
evolution of prosimians: Introduction      13
Herbert H. Covert

4. Adapiformes: Phylogeny and adaptation     21
Daniel L. Gebo
5. Tarsiiformes: Evolutionary history and adaptation      45
Gregg F. Gunnell and Kenneth D. Rose

6. Fossil lorisoids     83
Erica M. Phillips and Alan Walker
7. Quaternary fossil lemurs     97
Laurie R. Godfrey and William L Jungers

The origin and diversification of anthropoid primates     123

8. The origin and diversification of
anthropoid primates: Introduction         125
Marian Dagosto

9. Basal anthropoids     133
K. Christopher Beard

10. Platyrrhine paleontology and
systematics: The paradigm shifts      151
Alfred L. Rosenberger

11. Early platyrrhines of southern South America      161
John G. Fleagle and Marcelo F. Tejedor

12. Miocene platyrrhines of the northern Neotropics      175
Walter Carl Hartwig and D. Jeffrey Meldrum

13. Extinct Quaternary platyrrhines of the Greater Antilles and Brazil     189
Ross D. E. MacPhee and Ines Horovitz

The fossil record of early catarrhines and Old World monkeys     201

14. Early Catarrhines of the African Eocene and Oligocene      203
David Tab Rasmussen

15. The Pliopithecoidea     221
David R. Begun

16. The Victoriapithecidae, Cercopithecoidea      241
Brenda R. Benefit and Monte L. McCrossin

17. Fossil Old World monkeys: The late Neogene radiation       255
Nina G. Jablonski

The fossil record of hominoid primates      301

18. Perspectives on the Miocene Hominoidea      303
David R. Pilbeam

19. Late Oligocene to middle Miocene
catarrhines from Afro-Arabia                311
Terry Harrison

20. European hominoids     339
David R. Begun

21. The hominoid radiation in Asia      369
Jay Kelley

22. Middle and late Miocene African hominoids     385
Steven C. Ward and Dana L. Duren

The fossil record of human ancestry     399

23. Introduction to the fossil record of human ancestry     401
Henry M. McHenry

24. Earliest hominids      407
Tim D. White

25. Early Genus Homo      419
Holly Dunsworth and Alan Walker

26. Migrations, radiations and
continuity: Patterns in the evolution of
Middle and Late Pleistocene humans        437
Fred H. Smith

References      457
Historical figures index      519
Taxonomic index     523

CONTRIBUTORS

K. Christopher Beard
Vertebrate Paleontology Section
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA

David R. Begun
Department of Anthropology
University of Toronto
Toronto, ONT, M5S 3G3
Canada

Brenda R. Benefit
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA

Herbert H. Covert
Department of Anthropology
University of Colorado-Boulder
Boulder, CO 80309, USA

Marian Dagosto
Department of CMS Biology
Northwestern University
Chicago, IL 60611, USA

Holly Dunsworth
Department of Anthropology
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802, USA

Dana L. Duren
School of Biomedical Sciences
Kent State University
Kent, OH 44242, USA

John G. Fleagle
Anatomical Sciences
State University of New York
Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA

Daniel L. Gebo
Department of Anthropology
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, IL 601 15, USA

Laurie R. Godfrey
Department of Anthropology
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003, USA

Gregg F. Gunnell
Museum of Paleontology
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

Terry Harrison
Department of Anthropology
New York University
New York, NY 10003, USA

Walter C. Hartwig
Department of Basic Sciences
Touro University College of Osteopathic Medicine
Mare Island, Vallejo, CA 94592, USA

Ines Horwitz
Section of Mammalogy
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA

Nina G. Jablonski
Department of Anthropology
California Academy of Sciences
San Francisco, CA 94115, USA

William L. Jungers
Anatomical Sciences
State University of New York
Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA

Jay Kelley
Department of Oral Biology
College of Dentistry
University of Illinois-Chicago
Chicago, IL 60612, USA

Ross D.E. MacPhee
Division of Vertebrate Zoology
American Museum of Natural History
New York, NY 10024, USA

Monte L. McCrossin
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA

Henry M. McHenry
Department of Anthropology
University of California-Davis,
Davis, CA 95116, USA

D. Jeffrey Meldrum
Department of Biological Sciences
Idaho State University
Pocatello, ID 83202, USA

Erica M. Phillips
Department of Anthropology
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802, USA

David R. Pilbeam
Peabody Museum
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

David Tab Rasmussen
Department of Anthropology
Washington University
St. Louis, MO 63130, USA

Kenneth D. Rose
Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, MD 21205, USA

Alfred L. Rosenberger
Department of Public Programs
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC 20560, USA

Fred H. Smith
Department of Anthropology
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, IL 60115, USA

Marcelo F. Tejedor
Facultad de Ciencias Naturales
Sede Esquel, Universidad Nacional de la Pat
Esquel, Prov. Chubut, 9200, Argentina

Alan Walker
Department of Anthropology
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802, USA

Steven C. Ward
Department of Anatomy
NE Ohio University College of Medicine
Rootstown, OH 44272, USA

Tim D. White
Laboratory of Human Evolutionary Studies
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
and Department of Integrative Biology
University of California-Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

PREFACE

The idea for this book arose from discussions with Alfred L. Rosenberger, F. Clark 
Howell, Eric Delson and John Fleagle in 1998. I was anxious for the revision of Fred 
Szalay and Eric Delson's seminal reference work Evolutionary History of the Primates 
(Academic Press, 1979). Twenty years after publication this work was still the standard 
reference work for the primate fossil record, but many new and important fossils had 
been discovered in the meantime. I realized that only Eric and Fred could update their 
own reference work effectively, so I polled several colleagues to see if we could mount a 
group effort independent of them. To my delight the 31 contributors agreed to the effort 
immediately and enthusiastically. Our goal was to document the record usefully and 
objectively, and in a manner that would serve as a referential starting point for study of 
the history, classification and interpretation of the primate fossil record.

Once assembly of the book began in earnest it was clear that a comprehensive volume of 
all factual information and historical chronicle of the primate fossil record would be 
much larger than the practical word limit to which Cambridge and I had agreed. In some 
ways this may signal the end of large-scale primate evolution reference works in a printed 
medium. But I believe it also compelled the contributors to distill the essential 
information of history, taxonomy and interpretation from the vast accumulation reflected 
in the bibliography. My role in all of this was merely to build the whole out of the parts. 
As this required me to navigate through every sentence of every chapter, I alone am 
responsible for any errors or omissions in the final product.

Walter Carl Hartwig
Mare Island
Vallejo, California

WHERE TO ORDER

Cambridge University Press
40 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011-4211, USA

Phone:  1-800-872-7423
Fax:   914-937-4712
Web site: http://www.cambridge.org

Price: $175.00(Hardbound) ISBN: 0-521-66315-6


Book received: 7-16-02
Posted date: 9-12-02

URL: http://www.primate.wisc.edu/pin/review/primfossilrec.html
Page last modified: September 12, 2002
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