Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 The palaeo-ecology of the African continent: the physical environment of Africa from earliest geological to Later Stone Age times
- 2 Origins and evolution of African Hominidae
- 3 The earliest archaeological traces
- 4 The cultures of the Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age
- 5 The Late Palaeolithic and Epi-Palaeolithic of northern Africa
- 6 The Later Stone Age in sub-Saharan Africa
- 7 The rise of civilization in Egypt
- 8 Beginnings of pastoralism and cultivation in north-west Africa and the Sahara: origins of the Berbers
- 9 The origins of indigenous African agriculture
- 10 Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period in Egypt
- 11 Early food production in sub-Saharan Africa
- 12 Egypt, 1552–664 BC
- Bibliographical essays
- Bibliography
- Index
- Fig. 3.5 The distribution of sites known or believed to be older than 1.5 million years (i.e. Oldowan). (Modified from J. D. Clark 1967.)
- Fig. 3.6 The distribution of sites known or believed to be between 1.5 and 0.7 million years (i.e. Early Acheulian and Developed Oldowan).">
- Fig. 3.7 The location of Earlier Stone Age and Lower Palaeolithic sites thought to be between 0.7 and 0.1 million years old (i.e. Acheulian plus Developed Oldowan/Hope Fountain).
- Fig. 3.16 The ‘Zinjanthropus’ site at FLK, Bed I, Olduvai Gorge. A plan showing the distribution of an old ground–surface which was uncovered by excavation. A dense patch of discarded artifacts and introduced stones (manuports) coincides with a dense patch of broken–up animal bones. (After M. D. Leakey 1971.)
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2 - Origins and evolution of African Hominidae
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- 1 The palaeo-ecology of the African continent: the physical environment of Africa from earliest geological to Later Stone Age times
- 2 Origins and evolution of African Hominidae
- 3 The earliest archaeological traces
- 4 The cultures of the Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age
- 5 The Late Palaeolithic and Epi-Palaeolithic of northern Africa
- 6 The Later Stone Age in sub-Saharan Africa
- 7 The rise of civilization in Egypt
- 8 Beginnings of pastoralism and cultivation in north-west Africa and the Sahara: origins of the Berbers
- 9 The origins of indigenous African agriculture
- 10 Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period in Egypt
- 11 Early food production in sub-Saharan Africa
- 12 Egypt, 1552–664 BC
- Bibliographical essays
- Bibliography
- Index
- Fig. 3.5 The distribution of sites known or believed to be older than 1.5 million years (i.e. Oldowan). (Modified from J. D. Clark 1967.)
- Fig. 3.6 The distribution of sites known or believed to be between 1.5 and 0.7 million years (i.e. Early Acheulian and Developed Oldowan).">
- Fig. 3.7 The location of Earlier Stone Age and Lower Palaeolithic sites thought to be between 0.7 and 0.1 million years old (i.e. Acheulian plus Developed Oldowan/Hope Fountain).
- Fig. 3.16 The ‘Zinjanthropus’ site at FLK, Bed I, Olduvai Gorge. A plan showing the distribution of an old ground–surface which was uncovered by excavation. A dense patch of discarded artifacts and introduced stones (manuports) coincides with a dense patch of broken–up animal bones. (After M. D. Leakey 1971.)
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- References
Summary
INTRODUCTION
The African continent still preserves, in its equatorial reaches, mankind's closest living relatives, the chimpanzee (Pan) and gorilla (Gorilla) of the family Pongidae. In favourable parts of the continent there is a substantial fossil record for portions of the past 65 million years of geologic time, the Cenozoic Era. A diversity of primates are documented in the first (Palaeogene) part of that era, but in Africa only towards its end in the Oligocene Epoch. Though primitive still, some species are assigned to the Hominoidea, the primate superfamily which includes Hominidae and Pongidae, living and extinct. Early in the subsequent (Neogene) part of that era, the Miocene affords an abundance of primitive pongids, and in its mid to later parts there is even some suggestive evidence of more hominid-like creatures. Strangely, the fossil record of the African apes is thereafter essentially unknown.
This chapter attempts to set out in a general way the primary evidence for the evolution of Hominidae in Africa since the upper Miocene. The distribution of fossil localities yielding Cenozoic Hominidae on the continent is shown in the map at fig. 2.1. The temporal distributions of the most important fossil hominid occurrences are shown schematically in figs. 2.2 to 2.5. Their relationships are shown, also schematically, in the cladogram at fig. 2.13. The principal taxa of Hominidae most commonly recognized are duly considered but morphological details are generally avoided; the principal known features of each taxon are set out at length elsewhere (Howell 1978).
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- Information
- The Cambridge History of Africa , pp. 70 - 156Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982
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