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Reda HG, Frost SR, Simons EA, Quade J, Simpson SW. Description and taxonomic assessment of fossil Cercopithecidae from the Pliocene Galili Formation (Ethiopia). J Hum Evol 2024; 190:103508. [PMID: 38599140 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2024.103508] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2023] [Revised: 02/06/2024] [Accepted: 02/06/2024] [Indexed: 04/12/2024]
Abstract
The Mount Galili Formation in the Afar region, Ethiopia, samples a critical time in hominin evolution, 4.4 to 3.8 Ma, documenting the last appearance of Ardipithecus and the origin of Australopithecus. This period is also important in the evolution of cercopithecids, especially the origin of Theropithecus in general and Theropithecus oswaldi lineage in particular. Galili has provided a total of 655 cercopithecid specimens that include crania, mandibles, isolated teeth and postcrania. All the fossils were recovered from the Lasdanan (5.3-4.43 Ma), Dhidinley (4.43-3.9 Ma) and Shabeley Laag (∼3.92-3.8 Ma) Members. Here, we described and analyzed 362 fossils employing both qualitative and quantitative methods. Descriptions of the material were supplemented with dental metrics and cranial shape analysis using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics. Results indicate the presence of at least six cercopithecid taxa: Theropithecus oswaldi serengetensis (n = 28), Theropithecus sp. (n = 2), three non-Theropithecus papionin groups (n = 134) and one colobine-size group (n = 58). The T. o. serengetensis represents the earliest form of the lineage, documented from ∼3.9 Ma Galili sediments. The three Galili papionins include a smaller taxon, a medium-sized taxon comparable to Pliopapio alemui and a large papionin overlapping in size with Soromandrillus, Gorgopithecus and Dinopithecus. The majority of Galili colobines have closest affinities to Kuseracolobus aramisi and some overlap with other taxa. Papionins dominate the Galili cercopithecid collection, although colobines are still fairly common (approximately 25% of the sample). Thus, Galili sample is like Kanapoi (4.2-4.1 Ma) and Gona (5.2-3.9 Ma) localities but distinct from Aramis, suggesting paleoecological similarity to the former sites. On the other hand, Theropithecus is less abundant at Galili than geologically younger Hadar (3.4-3.2 Ma) and Woranso-Mille (3.8-3.6 Ma) sites. Whether this difference is due to sampling, time or landscape variation requires further investigation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hailay G Reda
- Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403-1218, USA.
| | - Stephen R Frost
- Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403-1218, USA
| | - Evan A Simons
- Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health and Science University, 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Rd, L470, Portland, OR, 97239, USA
| | - Jay Quade
- Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, 1040 E. 4th Street, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA
| | - Scott W Simpson
- Department of Anatomy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 44106-4930, USA; Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA
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Martin JM, Leece AB, Baker SE, Herries AIR, Strait DS. A lineage perspective on hominin taxonomy and evolution. Evol Anthropol 2024; 33:e22018. [PMID: 38217397 DOI: 10.1002/evan.22018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/17/2023] [Revised: 12/16/2023] [Accepted: 12/18/2023] [Indexed: 01/15/2024]
Abstract
An uncritical reliance on the phylogenetic species concept has led paleoanthropologists to become increasingly typological in their delimitation of new species in the hominin fossil record. As a practical matter, this approach identifies species as diagnosably distinct groups of fossils that share a unique suite of morphological characters but, ontologically, a species is a metapopulation lineage segment that extends from initial divergence to eventual extinction or subsequent speciation. Working from first principles of species concept theory, it is clear that a reliance on morphological diagnosabilty will systematically overestimate species diversity in the fossil record; because morphology can evolve within a lineage segment, it follows that early and late populations of the same species can be diagnosably distinct from each other. We suggest that a combination of morphology and chronology provides a more robust test of the single-species null hypothesis than morphology alone.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jesse M Martin
- Palaeoanthropology Lab, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
| | - A B Leece
- Palaeoanthropology Lab, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
- Geoarchaeology and Archaeometry Research Group, Southern Cross Geoscience, Southern Cross University, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Stephanie E Baker
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
| | - Andy I R Herries
- Palaeoanthropology Lab, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
| | - David S Strait
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
- Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- DFG Center for Advanced Studies "Words, Bones, Genes, Tools", University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
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Bibi F, Cantalapiedra JL. Plio-Pleistocene African megaherbivore losses associated with community biomass restructuring. Science 2023; 380:1076-1080. [PMID: 37289876 DOI: 10.1126/science.add8366] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2022] [Accepted: 05/10/2023] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Fossil abundance data can reveal ecological dynamics underpinning taxonomic declines. Using fossil dental metrics, we reconstructed body mass and mass-abundance distributions in Late Miocene to recent African large mammal communities. Despite collection biases, fossil and extant mass-abundance distributions are highly similar, with unimodal distributions likely reflecting savanna environments. Above 45 kilograms, abundance decreases exponentially with mass, with slopes close to -0.75, as predicted by metabolic scaling. Furthermore, communities before ~4 million years ago had considerably more large-sized individuals, with a greater proportion of total biomass allocated in larger size categories, than did later communities. Over time, individuals and biomass were redistributed into smaller size categories, reflecting a gradual loss of large-sized individuals from the fossil record paralleling the long-term decline of Plio-Pleistocene large mammal diversity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Faysal Bibi
- Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, 10115 Berlin, Germany
| | - Juan L Cantalapiedra
- GloCEE-Global Change Ecology and Evolution Research Group, Department of Life Sciences, Universidad de Alcalá, 28805 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain
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Getahun DA, Delson E, Seyoum CM. A review of Theropithecus oswaldi with the proposal of a new subspecies. J Hum Evol 2023; 180:103373. [PMID: 37269782 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2023.103373] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2022] [Revised: 04/02/2023] [Accepted: 04/03/2023] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Theropithecus oswaldi darti, as currently understood, is the oldest Theropithecus taxon in the fossil record and the earliest subspecies in the Theropithecusoswaldi lineage. Theropithecus oswaldi darti is typified at the site of Makapansgat in South Africa, and a similar form (T. o. cf. darti) is usually recognized at Hadar, Dikika, some Middle Awash localities, and Woranso-Mille in Ethiopia. This taxon is also tentatively believed to occur in Kenya at Kanam and Koobi Fora and in Member C of the Shungura Formation in Ethiopia. While there is a general consensus that the East African 'darti' specimens are sufficiently similar to each other, there has always been a question of whether they are too distinct from the South African type material of T. o. darti to belong to the same subspecies. Here we conduct a morphological comparison of the different samples previously assigned to T. o. darti and T. o. cf. darti. The results of our analyses overwhelmingly support the hypothesis that the East African samples are distinct from the South African ones, and they are likely distinct in geological age as well. Therefore, we propose a new subspecies designation for the material previously termed T. o. cf. darti from East Africa: Theropithecus (Theropithecus) oswaldi ecki subsp. nov. We also formally recognize Theropithecus (Theropithecus) oswaldi serengetensis (Dietrich, 1942) for specimens from Laetoli, Woranso-Mille, and perhaps Galili.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dagmawit Abebe Getahun
- PhD Program in Anthropology, City University of New York Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA; Department of Anthropology, Lehman College, City University of New York, 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, Bronx, NY 10468, USA; New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology and NYCEP Morphometrics Group, New York, NY 10016, USA.
| | - Eric Delson
- PhD Program in Anthropology, City University of New York Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA; Department of Anthropology, Lehman College, City University of New York, 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, Bronx, NY 10468, USA; New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology and NYCEP Morphometrics Group, New York, NY 10016, USA; Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, 200 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024, USA; PhD Program in Earth and Environmental Sciences, City University of New York Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA; Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici ICTA-ICP, Campus de la UAB, c/ Columnes, s/n, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain.
| | - Chalachew Mesfin Seyoum
- Department of Basic Medical Sciences, The University of Arizona, College of Medicine, 475 N 5th St., Phoenix, AZ 85004, USA; Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
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Cofran Z, Hurst S, Beaudet A, Zipfel B. An overlooked Australopithecus brain endocast from Makapansgat, South Africa. J Hum Evol 2023; 178:103346. [PMID: 36958187 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2023.103346] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2022] [Revised: 02/22/2023] [Accepted: 02/23/2023] [Indexed: 03/25/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Zachary Cofran
- Anthropology Department, Vassar College, 124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA; Centre for the Exploration of the Deep Human Journey, University of the Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Johannesburg, South Africa.
| | - Shawn Hurst
- Department of Biology, University of Indianapolis, 1400 East Hanna Avenue, Indianapolis, IN, USA
| | - Amélie Beaudet
- Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, UK; School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Johannesburg, South Africa; Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Calle de les Columnes, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Bernhard Zipfel
- Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Johannesburg, South Africa
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Telling time with monkeys. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2217198119. [PMID: 36469782 PMCID: PMC9897436 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2217198119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/10/2022] Open
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