Collaborative Research: Hominoid origins in a unique paleocommunity

This project advances knowledge about a crucial time in primate evolution when the ancestors of apes and humans are thought to have first diverged from other primate lines. A team of experts in paleoanthropology, paleontology and geology are conducting excavations and analyzing fossils and paleoenvironmental data from a fossil-bearing site in order to better understand the environmental context for primate adaptations and ecological diversity. The project offers invaluable research and training opportunities to scientists and students, including individuals from groups underrepresented in STEM, and provides opportunities for science outreach about human origins and climate change with local communities and the general public. An extraordinary new fossil primate site provides an opportunity to obtain new data related to the origins of the hominoids during the Oligocene. The primary objective of the project is to characterize the species diversity and paleoenvironmental context for the site. The central hypothesis is that the earliest stem hominoids arose within unique ecological communities that were very unlike those of the later Miocene hominoid radiations. The team of paleoanthropologists, geologists, and paleontologists carry out this work through additional fieldwork and analysis of the hundreds of fossils and geological samples already obtained. The goals are three-fold: (1) characterize the paleobiological disparity between hominoids and cercopithecoids in the mid-Oligocene by analyzing functional disparity; (2) build out a robust geologic framework that integrates current and future fossil localities into a well constrained chronology; and (3) characterize the mammalian community diversity by contextualizing its taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic composition. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.