Blythe A. Williams a,1, Richard F. Kay a, and E. Christopher Kirk b
-Author Affiliations
aDepartment of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0383; and
bDepartment of Anthropology, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712
Edited by Alan Walker, Penn State University, University Park, PA, and approved January 19, 2010 (received for review September 22, 2009)
Abstract
Adaptive shifts associated with human origins are brought to light as we examine the human fossil record and study our own genome and that of our closest ape relatives. However, the more ancient roots of many human characteristics are revealed through the study of a broader array of living anthropoids and the increasingly dense fossil record of the earliest anthropoid radiations. Genomic data and fossils of early primates in Asia and Africa clarify relationships among the major clades of primates. Progress in comparative anatomy, genomics, and molecular biology point to key changes in sensory ecology and brain organization that ultimately set the stage for the emergence of the human lineage.
primate Haplorhini Strepsirrhini human evolution phylogeny
Footnotes
1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:blythe.williams@duke.edu.
Author contributions: B.A.W., R.F.K., and E.C.K. analyzed data and B.A.W., R.F.K., and E.C.K. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
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