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3 Fossil Record of the Primates from the Paleocene to the Oligocene

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Handbook of Paleoanthropology

Abstract

The early fossil record of primates is very rich, but it is limited to nonrandom windows in time and space based on vagueries of historical geology. Most primates known are fossil taxa and their value to studies of phylogenetics, paleoenvironments, and biogeography cannot be overstated. True primates demonstrating orbital convergence, reduced olfaction, relatively large brains, and grasping extremities are known from the earliest Eocene of North America, Europe, and Asia, suggesting a much older origin of the order. The Eocene was a primate golden age, with diverse radiations of adapoids, omomyoids, and anthropoids among others. The phylogenetic relationships of some groups remain uncertain, largely because they show mosaic patterns of features that do not conform to expectations derived from the few living primates. True strepsirhines are documented in the Eocene of Africa. Basal tarsiers are known from the Eocene of Asia. Undoubted early anthropoids appear in Africa by the Middle to Late Eocene. Proposals that Eocene Asian primates might be related to the African anthropoids remain hypothetical. By the Oligocene, anthropoids had diverged into catarrhines, platyrrhines, and basal lineages now extinct. The apelike catarrhines that gave rise to monkeys, apes, and humans were present in Africa before the Oligocene–Miocene transition.

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Acknowledgments

I thank the editors for inviting me to contribute to this volume. I also gratefully acknowledge the colleagues who have sent me casts of important fossils that I would otherwise not get the chance to examine, with special thanks to Gregg Gunnell, Chris Beard, Emmanuel Gheerbrant, and Prithijit Chatrath. I am indebted to Elwyn Simons and Prithijit Chatrath for always sharing with me a few of their annual new discoveries in the Fayum and for their invitations to be involved in the Fayum research. For practical help with the manuscript and the figures, I thank Hilary Brazeal.

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  1. D. Tab Rasmussen
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Rasmussen, D.T. (2007). 3 Fossil Record of the Primates from the Paleocene to the Oligocene. In: Handbook of Paleoanthropology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-33761-4_31

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