New craniodental fossils of papionin monkeys from Cooper's D, South Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID8319944
AuthorsKaila E Folinsbee (Department of Anthropology Iowa State University Ames, IA 50011, corresponding author), Robert R Reisz (0000-0002-7454-1649, Department of Biology University of Toronto Mississauga Mississauga ON L5L 1C6 Canada)
Year2013
Volume151
Issue4
Pages613-629
Publication date2013-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Physical Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9483 • E-ISSN: 1096-8644
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/ajpa.22317
PMID23868174
OpenAlexW2155552832
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited47

Papionin monkey fossils are common in the Plio‐Pleistocene aged karst cave deposits northwest of Johannesburg in South Africa. These deposits have yielded important primate and other vertebrate fauna since their discovery in the early part of the 20th century. In this article, we describe new primate cranial and dental specimens from excavations at the site of Cooper's D in the Sterkfontein Valley that date to around 1.5 million years ago. Unlike other localities in southern Africa, most of the new fossils are referred to Theropithecus oswaldi oswaldi , an extinct gramnivorous monkey related to the living gelada. Diagnostic features of T. o. oswaldi crania and teeth include large, thickly enameled molars with tall, columnar cusps, and high molar relief, an upright mandibular ramus, postorbital constriction, and anterior fusion of temporal lines. Also present in the new sample are teeth referred to Papio sp., which show low crowned bunodont molars, and a number of indeterminate papionin teeth and skull fragments. The presence of T. o. oswaldi at Cooper's D extends the list of known localities where the taxon is found, and may indicate the presence of an open, grassland environment in the area during the early Pleistocene. The abundance of theropith fossils at Cooper's suggests that Papio was not consistently the most common papionin in southern Africa over the past three million years. Am J Phys Anthropol 151:613–629, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Archaeology · Biology · Cave · Crania · Fauna · Geography · Primate · Skull · Zoology · Ecology · Evolution and Paleontology Studies · Geology · Paleontology · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Primate Behavior and Ecology

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