November 2, 2009

(RHOI-supported) A recently released volume of Beitrage zur Palaontologie, volume 31, describes the history of and new research in the Mytilinii Basin of Samos Island, Greece. Edited by G. D. Koufos and D. Nagel, this new volume includes descriptions of the stratigraphy of the basin and newly recovered fossil material from pollen, to micromammals, and many large herbivores, including a diverse perissodactyl community.

Of particular interest at this Late Miocene site is the carnivore community, whose fossil remains are described and whose guild structure is analyzed in separate contributions. In all this volume comprises 17 chapters and 428 pages by 13 authors and provides a valuable source of information on Late Miocene European mammals.

(Image: Herausgegeben vom Verein zur Forderung der Palaontologie)
 

October 1, 2009

(RHOI-supported) The October 2, 2009 issue of the journal Science is a special issue devoted to the skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus. The special issue includes 11 articles by a total of 47 authors from 10 countries. Resulting from 15 years of painstaking excavation, preparation, reconstruction, and analysis, the articles provide a unique and invaluable introduction to 'Ardi' and the habitat occupied by Pliocene hominids. RHOI is privileged to be associated with this research. For further information go to: UC-Berkeley Press Announcement and for FREE DOWNLOAD of ALL Ardipithecus papers, go to: Science Magazine Ardipithecus Site.

(Image: AAAS)
 

July 25, 2009

(RHOI-supported) The classic site of Pikermi in Greece is well known as a representative site for the origination and spread of open-adapted fauna during the Late Miocene. In the July 21, 2009 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, J. T. Eronen and colleagues describe the rise and fall of Pikermi-like faunal assemblages over an 8 million year time span from 12 Ma to 4 Ma (ERONEN, J. T., M. MIRZAIE ATAABADI, A. MICHEELS, A. KARME, R. L. BERNOR and M. FORTELIUS (2009). "Distribution history and climatic controls of the Late Miocene Pikermian chronofauna." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106 (29): 11867-11871).

Combining climate data based on hypsodonty indices and atmospheric circulation models with genus-level faunal resemblance indices based on data downloaded from the Neogene Old World database project, the authors conclude that the Late Miocene Climate of the Paratethys region was conducive to modern savanna-like faunal communities, but that Mio-Pliocene boundary atmospheric pressure changes led to a drier central Europe and more humid Eastern Mediterranean causing the extinction of the Pikermi-like faunas (Eronen et al., 2009).

Much of the work in this paper grew out of a 20-year collaboration between Prof. Mikael Fortelius and Prof. Ray Bernor. It is one of the goals of RHOI to support and help establish productive academic partnerships such as this and foster discussions between researchers from different parts of the globe to further scientific progress in Late Miocene paleontology.

(Image: J. T. Eronen et al., 2009, Figure 2 )

(RHOI-supported) Featured in the July 16, 2009 issue of Nature is a review article discussing current progress in and future prospects for Primate Archaeology (HASLAM, M., et al. (2009). "Primate archaeology." Nature 460 (7253): 339-344). As the archaeological record now extends past the earliest dates of Homo, and more primate species are found to be using more complex tools and food procurement strategies, “For a comprehensive comparative study of the development of technology, we must establish the antiquity and form of tools used by non-human-primate ancestors (and potentially also tool-using species outside the primates), along with their ecological contexts” (Haslam et al., 2009; 341).

Some of the discussions leading to this publication occurred at RHOI-Supported meetings of the Comparative Behavior and Ecology Analytical Working Group led by Dr. W. C. McGrew, a co-author of the Nature paper. The intersection of primate ethology and archaeology described in this article opens exciting new avenues of research for understanding the development of human technology and cognition.

(Image: M. Haslam et al., 2009, Figure 2 )

July 15, 2009

(RHOI-supported) In a pair of articles in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA and the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, both published in June 2009, a team of researchers working in the Valles-Penedes basin in Spain led by S. Moyà-Solà and M. Köhler described a partial face with mandible of an 11.9 Ma hominoid of a hitherto unknown genus and species, which they name Anoiapithecus brevirostris, and a partial face of the previously named hominoid Dryopithecus fontani dating to 11.8 Ma (MOYÀ-SOLÀ, S., D. M. ALBA, S. ALMÉCIJA, I. CASANOVAS-VILAR, M. KÖHLER, S. DE ESTEBAN-TRIVIGNO, J. M. ROBLES, J. GALINDO and J. FORTUNY (2009). "A unique Middle Miocene European hominoid and the origins of the great ape and human clade." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106 (24): 9601-9606, and MOYÀ-SOLÀ, S., M. KÖHLER, D. M. ALBA, I. CASANOVAS-VILAR, J. GALINDO, J. M. ROBLES, L. CABRERA, M. GARCES, S. ALMECIJA and E. BEAMUD (2009). "First partial face and upper dentition of the Middle Miocene hominoid Dryopithecus fontani from Abocador de Can Mata (Valles-Penedes Basin, Catalonia, NE Spain): Taxonomic and phylogenetic implications." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 139 (2): 126-145).

The newly described hominoid Anoiapithecus brevirostris offers support for the hypothesis that the hominid clade (including all modern great apes and their ancestors as opposed to just humans and their ancestors) originated in Eurasia, and that Hominines originated via a back-to-Africa dispersal (Moyà-Solà et al., 2009a).

In the Dryopithecus paper, Moyà-Solà and colleagues give an in depth description of the hominoid specimens discovered in the Valles-Penedes basin along with a history of previous fossil research in the vicinity. In examining the first lower face of a Dryopithecus, the authors find the first evidence of a Gorilla-like face in the fossil record, though the authors consider these features to likely be convergent with Gorillas as opposed to placing Dryopithecus as a direct ancestor of Gorillas (Moyà-Solà et al., 2009b).

These exciting finds from Spain have greatly increased knowledge of Middle Miocene hominoids and helped elucidate the origins of modern great apes. Check back to this Newsfeed for further exciting announcements from Valles-Penedes.

(Image 1: S. Moya-Sola et al., 2009a, Figure 1; Image 2: S. Moya-Sola et al., 2009b, Figure 6.)

June 1, 2009

(RHOI-supported) Since 2003 the Sivas Late Miocene Project has recovered numerous well-preserved mammalian fossils in the Sivas area of Central Turkey. In collaboration with The Republic of Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Prof. Erksin Gulec (University of Ankara), Dr. Cesur Pehlevan (University of Yuzuncuyil), Dr. Aysen Acikkol (University of Sivas), Dr. Ismail Ozer (University of Ankara), Ayhan Yigit (University of Sivas), Mehmet Alkan (Sivas Museum of Archaeology), and Ferhat Kaya (CSU East Bay) coordinated the construction of a new Late Miocene exhibition section in the Sivas Museum of Archaeology to display these fossil finds.

In making the fossil material accessible to students and the people of Sivas, the new exhibit serves as a means to teach evolutionary theory and the natural history of the area. RHOI has played an integral role in the recovery and preservation of significant fossil material from Anatolia.

(Images: Cesur Pehlevan)

January 20, 2009

(RHOI-Supported) The December, 2008 edition of Comptes Rendus Palevol is a special issue entitled “African Carnivora from the Middle Miocene to the Pleistocene: New data, systematics, evolution, biogeography” and contains papers from the Carnivore AWG meeting that took place in May 2008, in Poitiers, France (see June 27, 2008 news item).

The volume contains 12 new research articles on the evolution of carnivores from the Miocene to the Pleistocene covering Italy, Europe (Koufos and de Bonis), Chad (de Bonis et al.), Ethiopia, Kenya, Northwest Africa (Geraads), and South Africa (Hartstone-Rose and Wahl). The taxa studied include lutrinae (Haile-Selassie, Lewis), Megantereon (Sardella et al.), Eucyon (Garcia), Herpestidae, Mustelidae, Hyaenidae (Semenov), Felidae (Peigne et al.), and Creodonts (Morales and Pickford), along with several papers on general carnivore evolution (Werdelin, de Bonis).

Carnivores are especially important for reconstructing paleoenvironments and understanding the selective pressures on contemporary fauna, both prey and other meat-eaters, including hominids (de Bonis, 2008). This volume represents an important summary and valuable resource of new data on late Tertiary carnivore evolution.

(Image: Academie des Sciences / Elsevier Masson SAS)

The first publication citing use of the RHOI database template was published in the October, 2008 issue of Comptes Rendus Palevol. The Omo Group Research Expedition recently reinitiated expeditions to the Shungura formations after a 30 year hiatus in 2006 and 2007. The new publication details work done over the previous two field seasons by an international team of scholars and collectors.

The catalogue used by the team stores “all inventory and contextual data” in a database that “follows the Revealing Hominid Origins Initiative database template” (Boisserie et al., 2008) The RHOI thanks the Omo Group Research Expedition for supporting our work. Continue to check the Newsfeed for additional projects using the RHOI database template.

Collection methods employed during the 2006-07 field seasons of the Omo Group Research Expedition (Image: Boisserie et al., 2008, Figure 2)

September 11, 2008

(RHOI-supported) A special issue on the geology and paleontology of the Late Miocene­Early Pliocene site of As Sahabi, Libya has recently been published in the Garyounis Scientific Bulletin (Boaz, N. T., A. El-Arnauti, P. Pavlakis, and M. J. Salem. (2008) Circum-Mediterranean Geology and Biotic Evolution during the Neogene Period: The Perspective from Libya. Garyounis Scientific Bulletin, Special Issue No. 5. Benghazi, Libya: University of Garyounis.) An analysis of material recovered from fieldwork dating as far back as the 1930s is presented including fossils recovered during the RHOI-supported 2007 field season.

As of 2008, a total of 30 large mammal taxa have been recovered from the Sahabi Formation, dated biochronologically and geochronologically to 7.2-7.5 Ma. In depth discussions of the development of the Sirt Basin and the role of North Africa as a biogeographic crossroads are presented. The final chapter discusses the paleoecology of Sahabi and compares it with the site of Toros Menalla, Chad (where Sahelanthropus tchadensis was discovered in 2001), to evaluate the potential of finding hominid remains within the Sahabi sediments.

(Image: University of Garyounis)

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Contextual)

NIKITI, GREECE (Contextual)

POITIERS, FRANCE (Meetings News)

June 11, 2008

June 07, 2008

April 30, 2008

MARCH 31, 2008

JANUARY 20, 2008

Conference Participants

(From left) Dr. Berhane Asfaw; Dr. Giday WoldeGabriel; Prof. Tim White;
His Excellency, Minister of Culture and Tourism, Ambassador
Mohamoud Dirir (MP); and other dignitaries and colleagues.

DECEMBER 6, 2007