An anachronistic Clarkforkian mammal fauna from the Paleocene Fort Union Formation (Great Divide Basin, Wyoming, USA)

The Clarkforkian (latest Paleocene) North American Land Mammal Age (NALMA) remains a relatively poorly sampled biostratigraphic interval at the close of the Paleocene epoch that is best known from the Bighorn Basin of northwestern Wyoming. A period of global warming between the cooler early and middle Paleocene and the extreme warming of the early Eocene, the Clarkforkian witnessed significant floral and faunal turnover with important ramifications for the development of Cenozoic biotas. The combination of warming global climates with mammalian turnover (including likely intercontinental dispersals) marks the Clarkforkian and the succeeding Wasatchian (Earliest Eocene) NALMAs as periods of intense interest to paleobiologists and other earth scientists concerned with aspects of biostratigraphy and with the biotic effects of climate change in the past. In this paper we describe a new Clarkforkian mammalian fauna from the Great Divide Basin of southwestern Wyoming with some surprising faunal elements that differ from the typical suite of taxic associations found in Clarkforkian assemblages of the Bighorn Basin. Several different scenarios are explored to explain this "anachronistic" assemblage of mammals from southern Wyoming in relation to the typical patterns found in northern Wyoming, including the concepts of basin-margin faunas, latitudinal and climatic gradients, and a chronologically transitional fauna. We suggest that the observed faunal and biostratigraphic differences between southern and northern Wyoming faunas most likely result from latitudinal and associated climatic differences, with floral and faunal changes being reflected somewhat earlier in the south during this period of marked climate change

An anachronistic Clarkforkian mammal fauna from the Paleocene Fort Union Formation (Great Divide Basin

The Clarkforkian (latest Paleocene) North American Land Mammal Age (NALMA) remains a relatively poorly sampled biostratigraphic interval at the close of the Paleocene epoch that is best known from the Bighorn Basin of northwestern Wyoming. A period of global warming between the cooler early and middle Paleocene and the extreme warming of the early Eocene, the Clarkforkian witnessed significant floral and faunal turnover with important ramifications for the development of Cenozoic biotas. The combination of warming global climates with mammalian turnover (including likely intercontinental dispersals) marks the Clarkforkian and the succeeding Wasatchian (Earliest Eocene) NALMAs as periods of intense interest to paleobiologists and other earth scientists concerned with aspects of biostratigraphy and with the biotic effects of climate change in the past. In this paper we describe a new Clarkforkian mammalian fauna from the Great Divide Basin of southwestern Wyoming with some surprising faunal elements that differ from the typical suite of taxic associations found in Clarkforkian assemblages of the Bighorn Basin. Several different scenarios are explored to explain this "anachronistic" assemblage of mammals from southern Wyoming in relation to the typical patterns found in northern Wyoming, including the concepts of basin-margin faunas, latitudinal and climatic gradients, and a chronologically transitional fauna. We suggest that the observed faunal and biostratigraphic differences between southern and northern Wyoming faunas most likely result from latitudinal and associated climatic differences, with floral and faunal changes being reflected somewhat earlier in the south during this period of marked climate change

Patterns of Growth and Development in the Genus Homo [book review]

The study of the growth, development, and life history of primates has seen a resurgence of interest among biological anthropologists over the past two decades. In particular, paleoanthropologists have broadened their analyses of fossil hominins to include aspects of development as it relates to phylogenetic and functional questions. As the editors of this volume make abundantly clear in their introductory essay, there are several compelling reasons why paleoanthropologists need to pay attention to the analysis of form and function throughout all life stages. Much evidence suggests that morphological change within and between species often results from ontogenetic changes (e.g., heterochrony), and that understanding the developmental basis of morphological traits is critical to determining their phylogenetic relevance. The editors of this volume have brought together an international group of developmental researchers (originally at a symposium at the 2001 AAPA meetings in Kansas City) and asked them to consider the origins of the distinctively human pattern of growth and development. The result is an interesting volume, highly diverse in its approaches, methods, and data sets, but unified in its overall focus on attempts to understand ontogeny and life history of fossil members of the genus Homo

Mammalian Evolutionary Morphology. A Tribute to Frederick S. Szalay [book review]

It is a great pleasure to review a volume honoring Fred Szalay’s many outstanding contributions to vertebrate paleontology and evolutionary morphology. The latest entry in Springer’s Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology series is a fitting tribute to a giant of our field whose influence continues to be felt as a result of his body of work and the work of his students and colleagues, many of whom are represented in the list of contributors to and editors of this volume. In the spirit of full disclosure I should state that as a graduate student in the 1980s with interests in primate functional morphology and evolution, I spent long hours and exerted much effort trying to master the complex rhetoric and forceful argumentation of Fred’s many publications, especially those on morphological and phylogenetic aspects of Paleocene and Eocene primates. Mixed with the pleasure of reviewing this wonderful tribute to Fred, however, is my sadness at noting the volume’s dedication to the memory of Dr. Justine A. Salton, Fred’s last Ph.D. student who died at far too young an age, only three months after defending her dissertation. Justine was an exceptionally promising young scholar and a friend to the editors, many of the contributors, and to this reviewer, and this volume serves as a fitting tribute to her life and scientific accomplishments

Reconstructing Behavior in the Primate Fossil Record [book review]

How can we best understand the adaptive significance of morphological features of fossil primates and, based on this understanding, reconstruct the behavior of these organisms? This edited volume, based on a Leakey Foundation-sponsored conference held at Duke University, reviews different approaches to these problems and makes an important contribution to the literature of primate paleontology. The authors and the editors are to be commended for their rigorous attempts to define important terminology (e.g., homology, adaptation), for their comprehensive coverage of a large and complex literature, and finally, for presenting a coherent viewpoint on how best to approach the difficult task of reconstructing the behavior of extinct primates. The book is organized into an introductory chapter that sets the theoretical foundation for all that follows, nine case studies dealing with different primate taxa and different anatomical/behavioral systems, and a final summary chapter by the editors

Google Earth, GIS, and the Great Divide: a new and simple method for sharing paleontological data.

Introduction The ease, efficiency, and speed of data communication and analyses are paramount to, and characteristic of, any mature science. GIS is an extraordinarily powerful tool for many aspects of (geo)spatial analyses (Longley et al., 2001), but while used routinely to solve complex spatial analyses problems in many disciplines, its adoption within paleontology has been lagging (Conroy, 2006). Part of the problem is that (a) GIS software is expensive (usually prohibitively so to the individual paleontological researcher) and (b) very few paleontologists are trained in its use. Here we show how paleontological data can be easily displayed and communicated in ways never before possible by combining Google Earth and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Using paleontological field data, we demonstrate several examples that go far beyond the novelty of simply “find my house” that many Google Earth users are currently familiar with. Specifically, we show how GIS map layers of paleontological interest, including their associated attribute tables (e.g., field catalog data), can be freely and easily transmitted to anyone with Internet access and familiarity with Google Earth. Data organized in GIS layers can be exported to the keyhole mark-up language native to Google Earth (KML/KMZ), transmitted to colleagues (who may have no knowledge of or access to GIS) as an email attachment, and then simply “dragged and dropped” by the recipient onto their own desktop Google Earth display, where the map layers appear “draped” over the Google Earth landscape. The recipient has access to all the graphics and attributes of each map layer that has been exported from GIS as well as to all Google Earth tools [e.g., ability to adjust map layer transparencies, labeling, longitude/latitude (or UTM determinations), spatial measurements, and “tilting” of landscapes for enhanced 3D views]. These tools are often sufficient to allow the non-GIS user to obtain specific information of interest from the data

Fossil GPS

The article focuses on paleontology and discusses how luck has played a big role in many of the world's great fossil discoveries. It also discusses a new technique that improves the odds of finding ancient bones. It reports on the use of modern computer models that look for hidden patterns in satellite images and generate maps of fossils sites, helping fossil hunters narrow their search

An anachronistic Clarkforkian mammal fauna from the Paleocene Fort Union Formation (Great Divide Basin, Wyoming, USA).

The Clarkforkian (latest Paleocene) North American Land Mammal Age (NALMA) remains a relatively poorly sampled biostratigraphic interval at the close of the Paleocene epoch that is best known from the Bighorn Basin of northwestern Wyoming. A period of global warming between the cooler early and middle Paleocene and the extreme warming of the early Eocene, the Clarkforkian witnessed significant floral and faunal turnover with important ramifications for the development of Cenozoic biotas. The combination of warming global climates with mammalian turnover (including likely intercontinental dispersals) marks the Clarkforkian and the succeeding Wasatchian (Earliest Eocene) NALMAs as periods of intense interest to paleobiologists and other earth scientists concerned with aspects of biostratigraphy and with the biotic effects of climate change in the past. In this paper we describe a new Clarkforkian mammalian fauna from the Great Divide Basin of southwestern Wyoming with some surprising faunal elements that differ from the typical suite of taxic associations found in Clarkforkian assemblages of the Bighorn Basin. Several different scenarios are explored to explain this “anachronistic” assemblage of mammals from southern Wyoming in relation to the typical patterns found in northern Wyoming, including the concepts of basin-margin faunas, latitudinal and climatic gradients, and a chronologically transitional fauna. We suggest that the observed faunal and biostratigraphic differences between southern and northern Wyoming faunas most likely result from latitudinal and associated climatic differences, with floral and faunal changes being reflected somewhat earlier in the south during this period of marked climate change

A Companion to Biological Anthropology [book review]

The publication of a new volume in the Blackwell Companions to Anthropology series provides an opportunity to reflect on the nature and breadth of our discipline. According to the publisher, the aim of this series is to offer “comprehensive syntheses of the traditional subdisciplines, primary subjects, and geographic areas of inquiry…and a cutting edge guide to the emerging research and intellectual trends in the field as a whole.” In this, the seventh title in the series, editor Clark Spencer Larsen and a large (N = 40), diverse group of authors have succeeded brilliantly in describing the wide range of issues and themes of interest to biological anthropologists, as well as summarizing what we know, and sometimes what we don't know, about these questions. As the editor explicitly points out in his Introduction, the central paradigm of biological anthropology is evolutionary theory. I should say that I use the term paradigm in the sense of a lens or explanatory framework with which we view our subject matter—humans and other primates. Our focus on evolutionary theory provides the metaphorical glue that binds together biological anthropologists who work in such seemingly disparate areas as genetics, epidemiology, behavior, biomechanics, physiology, growth, nutrition, and paleontology. My sense is that the shared focus and identity that evolutionary theory provides us as biological anthropologists is a much-valued feature of our field that is perhaps missing from some of the other subdisciplines of Anthropology

GIS and Paleoanthropology: Incorporating New Approaches from the Geospatial Sciences in the Analysis of Primate and Human Evolution.

The incorporation of research tools and analytical approaches from the geospatial sciences is a welcome trend for the study of primate and human evolution. The use of remote sensing (RS) imagery and geographic information systems (GIS) allows vertebrate paleontologists, paleoanthropologists, and functional morphologists to study fossil localities, landscapes, and individual specimens in new and innovative ways that recognize and analyze the spatial nature of much paleoanthropological data. Whether one is interested in locating and mapping fossiliferous rock units in the field, creating a searchable and georeferenced database to catalog fossil localities and specimens, or studying the functional morphology of fossil teeth, bones, or artifacts, the new geospatial sciences provide an essential element in modern paleoanthropological inquiry. In this article we review recent successful applications of RS and GIS within paleoanthropology and related fields and argue for the importance of these methods for the study of human evolution in the twenty first century. We argue that the time has come for inclusion of geospatial specialists in all interdisciplinary field research in paleoanthropology, and suggest some promising areas of development and application of the methods of geospatial science to the science of human evolution