ANT 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Oreopithecus, Gigantopithecus, Thermoregulation
Document Summary
Lecture 14: primate origins: the cenozoic era (65 mya now) [mya = million years ago] Paleocene epoch began 65 mya: eocene epoch began 54 mya, oligocene epoch began 34 mya, miocene epoch began 23 mya, holocene epoch began 12,000 ya (years ago) Pleistocene epoch began 2 mya: the month of december in the cosmic calendar. Imagine the entire age of the planet earth was condensed into just one year: in terms of time, primates and humans are a very recent species, paleocene epoch (65 mya): primate-like creatures. Small primate-like animals from the late paleocene (c. 60 mya) which we once thought were primates. They are possible primate relatives, but not primates because they only share ancestral traits with primates. They did not have post-orbital bar, only had claws (no nails at all), no opposable big toe: eocene epoch (54 mya): the first true primates. This is related to the emergene of flowering plants (angiosperms) and insects.
