Question

What is significant about these fossil primates: Smilodectes, Necrolemur, Apidium, Aegyptopithecus, Gigantopithecus, Sivapithecus, and Sahelanthropus?

What is the significance of the following sites: The Fayum, Hadar, Olduvai Gorge, Laetoli, Lake Turkana, and Taung?

Answer 1

II

The Faiyum (also given as Fayoum, Fayum, and Faiyum Oasis) was a region of ancient Egypt. The Fayum area is world-famous for its vertebrate fossils, which range in age from about 37 to 29 million years of age, and for its unique capacity to document the evolution and adaptation of our early anthropoid primate ancestors during a critical phase in mammalian evolutionary history, the early Oligocene periodHadar, site of paleoanthropological excavations in the lower Awash River valley in the Afar region of Ethiopia

The Hadar remains include partial skeletons of Australopithecus afarensis, a key species in human evolution. complete female skeleton of A. afarensis that became popularly known as Lucy. Dated to 3.2 million years ago, the remains provided further evidence that, in human evolution, walking on two legs (bipedalism) preceded increased brain size

The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world. Paleoanthropologists have found hundreds of fossilized bones and stone tools in the area dating back millions of years, leading them to conclude that humans evolved in Africa

Laetoli, site of paleoanthropological excavations in northern Tanzania important for Lateoli foot prints. "The Laetoli Footprints" provided convincing evidence for the theory of bipedalism in Pliocene hominins . they were the oldest known evidence of hominin bipedalism at that time.The Laetoli footprints were most likely made by Australopithecus afarensis, an early human

Lake Turkana , is a lake in the Kenyan Rift Valley, in northern Kenya. Lake Turkana remains, collection of hominin fossils found along the shores. It was a skeleton of a young boy, discovered at Lake Turkana in the deserts of northern Kenya. He died when he was about eight years old and his bones sank into the sediments of the lake, where they were preserved for 1.5 million years. He was, and is, the most complete early-human fossil ever discovered.

Taung is a small town situated in the North West Province of South Africa.The Taung Child is the fossilised skull of a young Australopithecus africanus. It was discovered in 1924 by quarrymen working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa. The Taung Child is important because it was the very first early hominid discovered,