Kelsey D. Pugh

City University of New York - Brooklyn College | CUNY · Department of Anthropology and Archaeology

Despite intensive study, many aspects of the evolutionary history of great apes and humans (Hominidae) are not well understood. In particular, the phylogenetic relationships of many fossil taxa remain poorly resolved. This study aims to provide an updated hypothesis of phylogenetic relationships for Middle-Late Miocene fossil apes, focusing on thos...

A distinctive ancestor There has been much focus on the evolution of primates and especially where and how humans diverged in this process. It has often been suggested that the last common ancestor between humans and other apes, especially our closest relative, the chimpanzee, was ape- or chimp-like. Almécija et al. review this area and conclude th...

This chapter examines hypothesized dispersal events between Africa and Eurasia involving non-cercopithecoid catarrhines, particularly hominoid apes, and reviews the tectonic and climatic events that may have had a role in shaping them. All available evidence points to hominoid origins in Africa by the latest Oligocene, and the earliest evidence for...

The fossil record of ‘lesser apes’ (i.e. hylobatids = gibbons and siamangs) is virtually non-existent before the latest Miocene of East Asia. However, molecular data strongly and consistently suggest that hylobatids should be present by approximately 20 Ma; thus, there are large temporal, geographical, and morphological gaps between early fossil ap...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

A Sivapithecus m3 from Ramnagar is described and the taxonomy of all Sivapithecus specimens from Ramnagar is reviewed.

African papionins are a highly successful subtribe of Old World monkeys with an extensive fossil record. On the basis of both molecular and morphological data, crown African papionins are divided into two clades: Cercocebus/Mandrillus and Papio/Lophocebus/Rungwecebus/Theropithecus (P/L/R/T), though phylogenetic relationships in the latter clade, am...

Baboons (Papio hamadryas) are among the most successful extant primates, with a minimum of six distinctive forms throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. However, their presence in the fossil record is unclear. Three early fossil taxa are generally recognized, all from South Africa: Papio izodi, Papio robinsoni and Papio angusticeps. Because of their derived...

An M3 of a catarrhine primate was recently recovered from Lower Siwalik deposits (~14-11 Ma) at the site of Sunetar near Ramnagar, India. Preliminary studies have shown that this Hylobates agilis-size tooth is distinct from the M3s of other primates found in the area, including Sivapithecus and Sivaladapis, and broader morphological comparisons ind...

The evolutionary history of extant hominoids (humans and apes) remains poorly understood. The African fossil record during the crucial time period, the Miocene epoch, largely comprises isolated jaws and teeth, and little is known about ape cranial evolution. Here we report on the, to our knowledge, most complete fossil ape cranium yet described, re...

In 1922, on the advice of prominent geologist and local Superintendent Charles Middlemiss, Barnum Brown began systematic collection of vertebrate fossils from Lower Siwalik deposits surrounding the town of Ramnagar (Jammu and Kashmir), India. Brown immediately discovered a partial jaw belonging to a large hominoid ape and described it as a new spec...

Characters drawn from the postcranium are often judged a priori to be more homoplastic than those drawn from the cranium or dentition. This bias is evident in morphological phylogenetic analyses across primates, which focus heavily on craniodental characters, and it persists despite evidence to the contrary. Among hominoids, the assumption that pos...

Paradolichopithecus is a large, terrestrially-adapted Pliocene fossil cercopithecine from Europe and Central Asia. While many previous studies have noted that Paradolichopithecus shares a number of craniofacial features with Macaca (e.g., rounded muzzle, lack of facial fossae, lack of anteorbital drop), a few others have instead suggested it shares...

Thumb reduction is among the most important features distinguishing the African and Asian colobines from each other and from other Old World monkeys. In this study we demonstrate that the partial skeleton KNM-ER 4420 from Koobi Fora, Kenya, dated to 1.9 Ma and assigned to the Plio-Pleistocene colobine species Cercopithecoides williamsi, shows marke...

Over the past century, numerous specimens collected near Ramnagar (Jammu and Kashmir Province, India) have proven important in understanding the evolution and biogeography of many mammalian groups, including hominoid apes. The precise geochronology of the Ramnagar-area deposits, however, remains uncertain and is an active topic of research. Since 2...