Andrew Hill

Andrew Hill
Yale University | YU · Department of Anthropology

Ph.D. London University

About

224
Publications
33,235
Reads
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4,421
Citations
Additional affiliations
July 1981 - June 1985
Harvard University
Position
  • Research Associate
July 1967 - June 1975
Bedford College, University of London
Position
  • Research Assistant & Ph.D. student
January 2014 - present
Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
Position
  • Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology
Education
July 1967 - June 1975
Bedford College, University of London
Field of study
  • Geology
July 1964 - June 1967
University of Reading
Field of study
  • Geology and Vertebrate Paleontology

Publications

Publications (224)
Book
This monograph presents the results of over 10 years of paleontological and geological survey in the Baynunah Formation of the United Arab Emirates. Exposed widely in western Abu Dhabi Emirate, the Baynunah Formation and its fossils provide the only record of terrestrial environments and evolution in the Arabian Peninsula during the late Miocene ep...
Chapter
In addition to skeletal remains that record the presence of a diverse vertebrate fauna, the Baynunah Formation also preserves fossil trackways. These are found on deflated surfaces of carbonateCarbonate-rich beds, mainly at sites located inland from the coast. FootprintsFootprint (track), like other trace fossils, may be difficult to assign to part...
Chapter
The Baynunah Formation in western Abu Dhabi Emirate was deposited by a major fluvial system and preserves the only known late Miocene terrestrial fossils in the Arabian Peninsula. We analyzed paleomagnetic samples from six sections (Jebel BarakahJebel Barakah (JBR), ShuwaihatShuwaihat (SHU)2, HamraHamra (HMR) Haplotilapiini 5, Mleisa 1, Mleisa 2, a...
Chapter
Fossil localities of the Baynunah Formation are here described, including previously known localities and those discovered by fieldwork since 2002. Site descriptions and coordinates are given, including updated coordinates for previously known localities. Many localities have been damaged or entirely lost to development activities.
Preprint
In addition to skeletal remains that record the presence of a diverse vertebrate fauna, the Baynunah Formation also preserves fossil trackways. These are found on deflated surfaces of carbonate-rich beds, mainly at sites located inland from the coast. Footprints, like other trace fossils, may be difficult to assign to particular species, but provid...
Preprint
Fossil localities of the Baynunah Formation are here described, including previously known localities and those discovered by fieldwork since 2002. Site descriptions and coordinates are given, including updated coordinates for previously known localities. Many localities have been damaged or entirely lost to development activities.
Article
Full-text available
The discovery of new hippopotamid material from the late Miocene Baynunah Formation (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) has prompted the revision of the existing material of this as yet unnamed fossil taxon. The Baynunah hippopotamid appears to be distinct from all other contemporary and later species in having a relatively more elongate symphysis, a...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The influence of climate and environmental history on human evolution is an existential question that continues to be hotly debated, in part because of the paucity of high resolution records collected in close proximity to the key fossil and archaeological evidence. To address this issue and transform the scientific debate, the HSPDP was developed...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP) is an international collaboration whose goal is to collect drill cores from paleolake beds in an attempt to improve our understanding of the paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental context of human origins in Africa during the Plio-Pleistocene. Using cores collected on the west side of Lake Tur...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Rift related ecosystems of East Africa are unique in tropical Africa in their topographically mediated habitat heterogeneity, localized climatic patterns, and perennial lake systems. While early stages of human evolution were not confined to rift valley ecosystems, early hominins utilized these distinctive biomes and reconstructing environmental fl...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP) is an international collaboration whose goal is to collect drill cores from paleolake beds in an attempt to improve our understanding of the paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental context of human origins in Africa during the Plio-Pleistocene. Using cores collected on the west side of Lake Tur...
Article
Full-text available
Significance The primate subfamily Cercopithecinae represents the most diverse and successful living Old World primate group, with a current distribution throughout Africa and Asia. However, how and when these monkeys dispersed out of Africa is not well understood. This paper is significant in its description of a ∼6.5–8.0 million-y-old fossil guen...
Chapter
Full-text available
This chapter summarizes the latest findings on late Miocene fossils from the Baynunah Formation in the United Arab Emirates. Since 1999, fossil discoveries have continued to be made in the late Miocene Baynunah Formation in Al Gharbia, Abu Dhabi Emirates. By way of biochronology, the Baynunah fossil fauna is estimated to be between 8 Ma and 6 Ma. N...
Data
Strict consensus trees that a exclude Lavocatomys, b exclude Gaudeamus and c include both Gaudeamus and Lavocatomys
Article
Full-text available
Cane rats (Thryonomyidae) are represented today by two species inhabiting sub-Saharan Africa. Their fossil record is predominately African, but includes several Miocene species from Arabia and continental Asia that represent dispersal events from Africa. For example, Paraulacodus indicus, known from the Miocene of Pakistan, is closely related to li...
Article
Full-text available
The modern Old World Monkeys (Superfamily Cercopithecoidea, Family Cercopithecidae) can be traced back into the late Miocene, but their origin and subsequent diversification is obscured by the scarcity of terrestrial fossil sites in Africa between 15 and 6 Ma. Here, we document the presence of cercopithecids at 12.5 Ma in the Tugen Hills of Kenya....
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Fossil trackways in the United Arab Emirates have been locally long known and related to dinosaurs and mythical giant men. BIBI et al. (2012) studying some of these trackways through kite aerial orthophotomosaic documented several fossil trackways. They were related to both a proboscidean herd and a solitary individual and led to the identification...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
A new method of inferring androgen levels, and thus mating behavior, in fossil species is described. We review evidence of cranial dimensions affected by testosterone (T) level in humans and investigate whether those landmarks are similarly T-sensitive in non-human primates, and thus fossil humans. The results indicate that certain mandibular and a...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Recently, we described ~12.5 million year old fossil colobine teeth from the Tugen Hills, Kenya. These specimens represent the earliest colobine and the earliest cercopithecid specimens in the fossil record by ~3 million years. In addition, recent expeditions to the Baynunah Formation, Emirate of Abu Dhabi, UAE, have resulted in the recovery of a f...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Understanding the possible linkages between environmental history and human evolution requires a detailed record of climatic, tectonic and hydrographic history for the regions of interest. In eastern Africa, thick lacustrine deposits often occur in close proximity to some of the most important fossil hominin and artifact localities, providing an op...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Testing hypotheses linking environmental change and human evolution requires detailed climatic, tectonic and hydrographic records for the areas of interest. In eastern Africa, stratigraphically continuous lake beds often occur near important fossil hominin and artifact sites, providing an opportunity to reconstruct paleoenvironmental conditions at...
Chapter
Full-text available
Since the publication of a monographic treatment of the Baynunah fossils (Whybrow and Hill 1999), renewed fieldwork activities have brought new light to elements of the Baynunah fossil fauna. This chapter summarizes the latest knowledge on the fossil biota of the late Miocene Baynunah Formation.
Article
Full-text available
Many living vertebrates exhibit complex social structures, evidence for the antiquity of which is limited to rare and exceptional fossil finds. Living elephants possess a characteristic social structure that is sex-segregated and multi-tiered, centred around a matriarchal family and solitary or loosely associated groups of adult males. Although the...
Chapter
Full-text available
Evidence of mammals that lived in the past is, in general, very rare. Most animals, when they die, succumb to decomposition and dissolution. Although Arabia is a large place, comparable in size to the Indian subcontinent, there are very few sites of any age that document fossil mammals. Reports of ancient fossil vertebrates from Abu Dhabi were reco...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Evidence for social behavior, group size and structure in the fossil record is generally limited to rare and exceptional fossil finds. Living elephants are an example of a group that exhibits complex and well-studied social behavior. Despite a rich proboscidean fossil record going back to the early Eocene, evidence on the antiquity of characteristi...
Article
Full-text available
How do you find out about the family life of extinct mammals? How many animals are there in a group? How do you know how many are males, females, adults, young ones? Mostly you do not, because such information is very difficult to get. But it would be useful to know, for all kinds of reasons.
Article
Here we describe a complete skull and partial skeleton of a large cercopithecoid monkey (KNM-TH 46700) discovered in the Chemeron Formation of the Tugen Hills at BPRP Site #152 (2.63 Ma). Associated with the skeleton was a mandible of an infant cercopithecoid (KNM-TH 48364), also described here. KNM-TH 46700 represents an aged adult female of Thero...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Tugen Hills are part of a ~100 km N-S tilted fault block, just west of Lake Baringo within the Central Kenyan Rift Valley. Sediments exposed in this block span the last 16 Ma and have yielded abundant and diverse fossil assemblages including a number of hominoid and hominid specimens. Much research has also focused on documenting the paleoecolo...
Article
Miocene to Pleistocene fossiliferous sediments in the Tugen Hills span the time period from at least 15.5 Ma to 0.25 Ma, including time periods unknown or little known elsewhere in Africa. Consequently, the Tugen Hills deposits hold the potential to inform us about crucial phylogenetic events in African faunal evolution and about long-term environm...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
A complete skull and partial skeleton of an adult female Theropithecus brumpti (KNM-TH 46700) was discovered at Site #152 in the Chemeron Formation by the Baringo Paleontological Research Project (BPRP) in 2003. BPRP Site #152 is dated at 2.7-2.9 Ma. While the male T. brumpti morphotype is well documented from Ethiopia's Omo Shungura Formation as w...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Ongoing field investigations in the Baringo Basin, Kenyan Rift Valley, have revealed abrupt and repeated cycling of major freshwater lake systems at 23 ka precessional pacing, occurring at the maximum of an Earth orbital eccentricity cycle between ~2.7–2.5 Ma. Recent research has revealed that fossiliferous sediments within this local basin can now...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Chemeron Formation is a hominin-bearing, highly fossiliferous sequence of dominantly alluvial fan and fluvial sedimentary rocks, with climatically significant lacustrine intercalations, exposed within the Tugen Hills of the central Kenya Rift. As we have previously documented (Deino et al., 2006; Kingston et al., 2007), the formation contains a...
Article
Interpretations of the postcranial anatomy of East African early and middle Miocene large-bodied hominoids (e.g., Proconsul, Afropithecus, Turkanapithecus, Nacholapithecus) have suggested that these diverse primates utilized positional behaviors dominated by arboreal quadrupedalism. Preliminary descriptions of the Equatorius africanus partial skele...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper we summarize the history of the American School of Prehistoric Research, discuss the sites visited during the program's tenure from 1921–1934, and provide an analysis based on taxonomy and skeletal elements of the large mammalian faunal remains from one of those sites, La Quina. A listing of all La Quina large mammalian fauna deposite...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Tugen Hills are part of a ~100 km N-S tilted fault block, just west of Lake Baringo within the Central Kenyan Rift Valley. Sediments exposed in this block span the last 16 Ma and have yielded abundant and diverse fossil assemblages including a number of hominoid and hominid specimens. Much research has also focused on documenting the paleoecolo...
Article
Global climate change, linked to astronomical forcing factors, has been implicated in faunal evolutionary change in equatorial Africa, including the origin and diversification of hominin lineages. Empirical terrestrial data demonstrating that orbital forcing has a significant effect, or is detectable, at early hominin sites in equatorial continenta...
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Full-text available
In this paper we summarize the history of the American School of Prehistoric Research, discuss the sites visited during the program’s tenure from 1921–1934, and provide an analysis based on taxonomy and skeletal elements of the large mammalian faunal remains from one of those sites, La Quina. A listing of all La Quina large mammalian fauna deposite...
Article
The fluviolacustrine sedimentary sequence of the Chemeron Formation exposed in the Barsemoi River drainage, Tugen Hills, Kenya, contains a package of five successive diatomite/fluvial cycles that record the periodic development of freshwater lakes within the axial portion of the Central Kenya Rift. The overwhelming abundance in the diatomite of pla...
Article
Full-text available
Kolpochoerus heseloni is known from the later Pliocene into the middle Pleistocene of Africa. It is widely distributed in time and space, and it is known from many hominin palaeontological and archaeological sites in Africa. We use three methods to investigate the diet and habitat preferences of this species. Dental microwear analysis and carbon st...
Chapter
Full-text available
Attempts to reach well beyond the state of knowledge and existing conceptual frameworks are rarely embraced by the scientific community, typically as they mislead rather than guide. However, it is precisely these overextensions that can generate the most innovative perspectives and revolutionary breakthroughs in science. Alternatively they create c...
Article
Full-text available
The early Miocene primate fauna of East Africa included a diverse group of small catarrhines commonly referred to as small-bodied apes. These small apes were long regarded as early relatives of the living gibbons, but are now recognized as either stem hominoids or stem catarrhines. Like the rest of the archaic catarrhine fauna of East Africa (inclu...
Article
The Muruyur Beds are a substantial sedimentary deposit within a middle Miocene sequence of mafic volcanic flows associated with early stages of rifting in the central Kenyan Rift Valley. They are best represented in the Muruyur region, near Bartabwa, north of Kipsaramon, where dates range from 16.0 to 13.4 Ma. At Kipsaramon, located about 10 km sou...
Article
Forty-one isolated large hominoid teeth, as well as most of the mandibular and three maxillary teeth associated with a partial skeleton, were recovered from middle Miocene Muruyur sediments near Kipsaramon in the Tugen Hills, Baringo District, Kenya. The isolated teeth were collected as surface finds and the skeleton was excavated in situ at locali...
Article
A partial skeleton was recovered from middle Miocene Muruyur sediments near Kipsaramon in the Tugen Hills, Baringo District, Kenya. The specimen, representing much of the upper skeleton, comes from locality BPRP#122 dated between 15.58 Ma and 15.36 Ma. It is referable to the middle Miocene hominoid taxon Equatorius africanus. Preliminary descriptio...
Article
The early evolutionary history of the cercopithecoids is poorly understood, primarily due to a lack of fossil material from between 15 and about 9 Ma. Cercopithecoid primate specimens from a fossil site in the Ngorora Formation of the Tugen Hills, Kenya, belong to the genus Victoriapithecus, possibly a new species. These fossils are associated with...
Article
Interpretations of faunal assemblages from the late Miocene Mpesida Beds in the Tugen Hills of the Central Kenyan Rift Valley have figured prominently in discussions of faunal turnover and establishment of the modern East African communities. These faunal changes have important implications for the divergence of the human lineage from the African a...
Article
(40)Ar/(39)Ar single-crystal laser-fusion dating, K-Ar dating, and paleomagnetic reversal stratigraphy have been used to determine the chronostratigraphy of the Kabarnet Trachyte, Lukeino Formation, Kaparaina Basalt Formation, and Chemeron Formation at the sites of Kapcheberek (BPRP#77) and Tabarin (BPRP#77) in the Tugen Hills, Kenya. The successio...
Article
A fossil hominid temporal bone (KNM-BC 1) from surface exposures at Baringo Paleontological Research Project site BPRP#2 in the Chemeron Formation outcropping in a tributary drainage of the Kapthurin River west of Lake Baringo, Kenya has been attributed to Homo sp. indet. K-feldspar phenocrysts from lapilli tuffs bracketing the inferred fossilifero...
Article
Temporal bone morphology, as part of the basicranium, is commonly used in systematic evaluation of early hominid fossils. When an isolated right temporal bone, KNM-BC 1 (the Chemeron temporal) was discovered in the Baringo Basin, Kenya, Tobias (1967 a, Nature215, 476-480), citing ambiguity of characters, hesitated to place the specimen generically,...
Chapter
Full-text available
Old World monkeys (Cercopithecoidea) are the most successful and diverse group of living non-human primates in terms of the number of species, behavioural repertoires and ecology. They have much to teach us about the processes of evolution and the principles of ecology, and are among our closest living relatives. This volume presents a broad, techn...
Chapter
Article
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A partial hominoid skeleton just older than 15 million years from sediments in the Tugen Hills of north central Kenya mandates a revision of the hominoid genus Kenyapithecus, a possible early member of the great ape–human clade. The Tugen Hills specimen represents a new genus, which also incorporates all material previously referable to Kenyapithec...
Chapter
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This short note reports a specimen of no great intrinsic interest, but which assumes more signifi-cance as the only fossil primate found in Abu Dhabi, and the only fossil monkey so far known from the Arabian Peninsula. The fossil, AUH 35, was found by Peter Whybrow (The Natural History Museum, London) in sediments of the Baynunah Formation, in the...