Miocene Planet of the

Jarðsaga 2 -Saga Lífs og Lands – Ólafur Ingólfsson Háskóli Íslands Available data has been interpreted to suggests that during 50-100 different species of Hominoid Apes roamed the Old World, compared to 11 species today... But this is not uncontroversial. Other studies suggest ~20 species

An article in a 2003 number of Scientific American, “Planet of the Apes”: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/anthropology/Faculty/Begun/begunSciAm.pdf Hot and debated subject – the origin of Man -

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/11/2/quicktime/e_s_5.html A family tree of

There are 153 different living species of primates, divided into 6 main groups: • , 1 family, 1 species •Hominoids(“mannapar”), 4 fam., 11 spec. •Oldworldmonkeys(“austur- apar”), 14 fam., 72 spec. •NewWorldmonkeys (“vesturapar”), 16 fam., 33 spec. • Tarsiers (Ghost Monkeys, “draugapar”), 1 fam., 3 spec. • Prosimians (“hálfapar”), 19 fam., 33 spec. Classifying the primates...

Hominid - the group consisting of all modern and extinct Great Apes (that is, modern humans, , and orang-utans plus all their immediate ancestors). Hominin - the group consisting of modern humans, extinct species and all our immediate ancestors (including members of the genera Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Ardipithecus). Why did the primates evolve so much during the Miocene? Of particular relevance to the story of evolution are the vegetational changes resulting from plate tectonics and formation of mountain ranges. In a cooler and dryer world, grasses flourished in many areas that had previously been forested. A new type of primate—the ground inhabitant— came into being during this period. The generalized nature of the bodily form of primates, combined with their specialized brain, made this critical step possible. The story of contains numerous question marks – and is constantly being revised...

Source of diagram= http://www.amonline.net.au/human_evolution/tree.htm Human ancestry back to Eocene-Oligocene

Copyright 2001 VRW

A primate known as Propliopithecus (also called Aegyptopithecus), from the Fayum fossil sites of Egypt, is thought to be what the common ancestor of all later Old World monkeys and apes looked like. So Propliopithecus may be considered an ancestor, or closely related to a direct ancestor, of apes, orangutans and humans. Lived 30-40 MY ago... Miocene Primates

The Miocene epoch was a remarkable phase in primate evolution in which there appears to have been an increase in the numbers of larger primates that were widely spread throughout the Old World, including Europe, Asia, and . The large number of specimens recovered from widely separated sites over a long period of time has led to taxonomic confusion, and more than 50 species have been described and classified in 20 genera. The large Miocene hominoids appear to belong to three groups, the Sivapithecus, the Dryopithecus, and the Proconsul groups. Within these groups are at least 24 species from Europe, Africa, and Asia. Miocene development of primates

• Hominoids evolved during the Miocene epoch (24-5 MY ago). Large species originated in Eurasia or Africa by 24-22 MY ago. • Among the oldest known hominoids is a group of apes known by its genus (ættkvísl) name, Proconsul. Species of Proconsul had features that suggest a close link to the common ancestor of apes and humans. The ape species Proconsul heseloni lived in dense forests of eastern Africa about 20 MY ago. It was agile in the trees, with a flexible backbone and narrow chest of a monkey, yet capable of wide movement of the hip and thumb as in apes. Hominoids have no tail. olution/skulls/proconsul.htm v e Victoria, Western o Eastern Africa, 19 t eseloni h restricted Island, Lake http://www.amonline.net.au/human_ pecies usinga s R

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• Early in their evolution, the large apes underwent several radiations, periods when species originated and became more diverse. •After Proconsul had thrived for several MY, a group of apes from Africa and Arabia known as the afropithecines evolved around 18 MY ago and diversified into several species. Miocene migration of large apes

Apes migrated from Africa to Asia and Europe over a land bridge formed between the Africa-Arabian and Eurasian continents. Later, they migrated back to Africa... Miocene Ape fossil localities

It is notable that most fossil sites for Miocene apes are not in Africa, but in Europe and Asia... Fossils of great apes - the large-bodied group represented today by chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans - have turned up only in western and central Europe, Greece, Turkey, South Asia and China. Eurasia is thus more likely than Africa to have been the birthplace of the family that encompasses great apes and humans, the hominids. Miocene radiation of large apes

Around 15 MY ago, two new groups of apes had evolved –thekenyapithecines of Africa and western Asia (first known ~15 MY ago) and the dryopithecines of Europe (first known ~12 MY ago). It is not entirely clear which of these groups of ape species may have given rise to the common ancestor of African apes and humans. Proconsul on the ancestral lineage – but the development is unclear... One view of the lineage... Others favour Dryopithecus

• Best known European fossil ape • Middle-late Miocene • Exhibits facial characteristics of African apes and early hominides • Skull resembles skull of infant chimpanzees Dryopithecus broncoi and nown, anine k c are tructure distinguish s xpected, n i e e that umans. The b h arge, -sized l

Dryopithecus might odern m pecializations rom s orms of f ways, as f Dryopithecus rather generalized is pes f the a many o mall, medium, and istinct s d ost odern m m Several lacks the teeth are larger than those in humans but not as strongly developed as those in modern apes. The limbs were not excessively long—an adaptation in the apes for swinging through trees. The skull lacked the well-developed crests and massive brow ridges found in modern apes. including . In Dryopithecus One commonly held view is that Dryopithecus likely gave rise to the modern gorillas and chimpanzees. Sometime during the Miocene Epoch, the dryopithecines gave rise to a derivative that eventually led to the earliest humanlike forms and finally to humans. Four mid-late Miocene Apes 1. Otavipithecus, (Namibia), middle Miocene (~13 MY) 2.Sivapithecus = orangutan- like ape 17-8 my old from Siwaliks in Pakistan 3. Ankarapithecus (Turkey) is estimated to have first occurred at 10-9.8 MY ago 4. Gigantopithecus (India, China), first occurred 9-6 MY ago

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Ramapithecus, f have in o irect t d ossils rangutan. f o the related be the and primates recovered deposits of northern Pakistan. It was a small-to-medium- sized ape about the size of a modern chimpanzee. The fossil remains of Sivapithecus Sivapithecus shared many of the same specialized facial features of the orangutan

~17-8 MY

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lacki s a b lacki b of Black' E h t cus u pe e 00,000 years o A 2 ith S p – f o s t was probably a slow mover. / 550 kg. s e ate ever to have walked the r f a Giganto o dern human 20th century archaeologist o 'Gigantic h little more than move from place to ef t South East Asia. s he 6.3 million n t 300 cm Bamboo, fruits. tee d vegetation from its surroundings. e est prim d nd a Gigantopithecus e h that of a mo Gigantopithecus Meaning: after Davidson Black. Lived: ago. Range: Diet: Size: Jaw to nt the larg oi e o b m a may b had a broad, short face with massive jaw and teeth. nb do e f t I . h t r a Its feeding habits required it to do place as it systematically strippe Gigantopithecus E Gigantopithecus Like other big herbivores, Contacts between humans and the Giant Ape...

“One intriguing question is what contact our remote ancestor, Homo erectus, may have had with the giant ape. That the two coexisted for some time in the same region is supported by direct evidence. In 1965, Vietnamese paleontologists discovered the remains of both creatures at Tham Khuyen, a cave site in Lang Son Province, near the Chinese border. Chinese excavators followed suit, excavating Gigantopithecus and Homo erectus side by side in Hubei Province in 1970 and more recently, in 1987, in Sichuan Province.” A good web-site, The Ape That Was, http://www.uiowa.edu/%7Ebioanth/giganto.html The missing link..? Tracing the origins of humans Molecular evidence suggests that the human line split from the chimp line only about 6 MY ago. Some recent fossil finds date from between 4.1 and 6 million years ago, placing them very close to that evolutionary divergence.

Evidence from fossil animals, plants, and soils associated with these early hominids indicate that the environment in which they died was quite densely forested. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/humans/humankind/ Human evolution is a puzzle made up of thousands of fossil pieces, and the Chart of Human Evolution (left) shows the major pieces of that puzzle arranged in one likely solution. The members of the biological human family are living humans, all human ancestors, and the many extinct members of Australopithecus. Hominids form a superfamily distinct from the old world apes and monkeys, which includes the family of great apes (chimpanzee, gorilla, and orangutan) -- our nearest living biological kin. The Australopithechines About 5-6 MY ago apes lived that were ancestors to both chimpanzees and humans. The animals that gave rise to chimps were adapted to living in deeper forest, whilst the ancestors of humans lived more in sparse woodland at the edges of the Australopithecus was closely African plains. related to the animals we are descended from. There were many species of these bipedal apes living in S and E Africa between about 4.5-1.5 million years ago. Australo- pithecus afarensis is one of the older species. The Laeotoli footprints

In 1976, paleoanthropologist Andrew Hill stumbled on what turned out to be one of the wonders of prehistoric finds: a trail of hominid foot-prints about 3.6 MY old. The majority of the Laetoli footprint site was excavated in 1978. Until then, the oldest known footprints of human ancestors were tens of thousands of years old. But this trail, some 30 m long and preserved in cement-like volcanic ash, had been made by some of the first upright-walking hominids. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/1/quicktime/l_071_03.html Lucy

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/1/quicktime/l_071_01.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/04/3/quicktime/l_043_01.html Lucy • Australopithecus afarensis, most famously preserved in the the fossil skeleton of "Lucy", discovered by Johanson in the 1970s. • Specimens range from 3.2 to 2.9 million years in age. • The individuals are 1 to 1.2 meters tall, with a brain size of only 415 cubic centimeters and a generally ape- like face. • Primitive characters include long arms, short legs, and curved finger and toe bones that imply the use of hands and feet in grasping branches. • A. afarensis is fully human in some significant ways, including hindlimbs and pelvis fully adapted for a type of bipedal locomotion. he t n is- i d

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habilis pecies efinition s habilis d appear, living to first Homo The goes back to Louis Leakey found fossils in Tanzania, E Africa, in 1964. Its name means "handy-man".

Homo Apelike human In its appearance and mor- phology, habilis was the least similar to modern humans of all species to share the Homo genus. It was short, no taller than ~1,3 m, and had dispropor- tionately long arms com- pared to modern man. Homo habilis is thought to have descended from a species of the Australo- pithecine. Homo habilis had a brain slightly less than half of the size of modern man. e n cut- o the f knock- pe-men. so first dge, is a e e d i he a simple s t and h t habilis o stones, by b make jagged apes lived in E and S a f to f from ake so from e m

k habilis bility distinguishes o a hunter-gatherer l a Homo tool t gf n The ting i end what humans Homo Africa between about 2,5-1,6 MY ago judging from the dated bones. Stone tools from Hadar in Ethiopia have been dated to 2,600,000 years and imply an even earlier appearance. animals, the use of carrions, fruits hunted knew te a lso a

H. Habilis but etc. They fire, and campsites with charcoal have been discovered... There is near unanimity among paleoanthropologists that H. Homo ergaster, which appeared about 2 MY ago, is the anchor species for ergaster all subsequent humans. Ergaster presents a significant increase over earlier hominids in both stature and bone mass. Male ergasters stood close to 1.6 m tall and weighed around 65 kg, making them physically almost the equal of modern humans. With that robust evolutionary shift, brain capacity increased to 850cc and the skull aquired a definite browridge and an elongated "football" shape. What did H. Ergaster look like?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/cavemen/chronology/contentpage3.shtml Skilled and social ...

• Long legs and increased brain size made ergaster especially suited to long-range migration. The available fossil record suggests that ergaster ranged throughout eastern and northern Africa, and was the first human species to migrate out of Africa into middle and eastern Asia -- possibly even into southern Europe. •Inergaster appears many of the social and behavioral traits characteristic of human hunter-gatherer populations of today -- knowing resource exploitation of very large geographical areas, long term stability in toolmaking procedures, complex plant and animal processing skills -- which all imply early forms of vocal or gestural language and a considerable role for culture and social learning. The Acheulean tool industry The tool industry first appeared around 1.5 MY ago in East-Central Africa, associated with H. ergaster and western H. erectus. The key innovations are (1) the shaping of an entire stone to a stereotyped tool form, and (2) chipping the stone from both sides to produce a sym- Making an Acheulean tool re- metrical (bifacial) cutting edge. quired both strength and skill. Manufacture shifted from flakes Large shards were struck from big rocks or boulders. struck from a stone core to shaping These heavy blades were a more massive tool by careful shaped into bifaces, then repetitive flaking. The most com- refined at the edges (using bone or antler tools) into mon tool materials were quartzite, distinctive variations in shape. glassy lava, chert and flint. Darwin’s conclusions verified...

Charles Darwin was ridiculed by the press when he in 1848 suggested that man and apes might have common ancestry. Even though there is much still to learn about our evolution as a species, Darwins conclusions are sound and valid...

The Writings of Darwin on the web: http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/ http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/disp.html References used when preparing this lecture Stanley: Earth System History. Arnold, London Fortey: Life. A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years on Earth. Vintage, New York. http://www.ivry.cnrs.fr/deh/gommery/gommery.htm http://natmus.uio.no/human/ http://amol.org.au/discovernet/alcoota/thylacinus.asp Sánchez-Villagra, M. R., Aguilera, O. & Horovitz, I. The anatomy of the world's largest extinct rodent. Science, 301, 1708 - 1710, (2003). http://www.uiowa.edu/%7Ebioanth/giganto.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/cavemen/factfiles/ http://www.kerwoodwolf.com/EVOLUTION.htm http://www-museum.unl.edu/research/vertpaleo/ashfall.html http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/disp.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/beasts/factfiles/index_all.shtml http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Paleoanthropology.html#Australopithecines http://www.ecotao.com/holism/hu_habilis.htm#habilis http://www.biology.ucsc.edu/classes/bio161/KFE%20algae%20photos/Macrocystis.html http://www.mbari.org/~conn/botany/browns/james/default.htm http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/eviau/edit557/oceans/norma/oklpfst.htm http://www.palaeos.com/Cenozoic/Miocene/Miocene.htm http://www-museum.unl.edu/research/vertpaleo/ashfall.html http://www.glasgowzoo.co.uk/articles/carnivores/conferencebears2.php http://www.primates.com/history/ http://www.shore.ctc.edu/access/geology100/life6.html#anchor1057826