Juvenile hominoid cranium from the late Miocene of southern China and hominoid diversity in Asia

The fossil ape Lufengpithecus is known from a number of late Miocene sites in Yunnan Province in southern China. Along with other fossil apes from South and Southeast Asia, it is widely considered to be a relative of the extant orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus. It is best represented at the type site of Sh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2012-05, Vol.109 (18), p.6882-6885
Main Authors: Kelley, Jay, Gao, Feng
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
anatomy & histology
Animals
Apes
Asia
Basins
Biological Evolution
Biological Sciences
Bones
China
classification
Comparative analysis
Cranium
Cultural diversity
Dispersal
Fauna
Fossils
History, Ancient
Hominidae
Hominidae - anatomy & histology
Hominidae - classification
Humans
Minors
Monkeys & apes
Phylogeny
Pongo pygmaeus
Primates
Skull
Skull - anatomy & histology
South Asia
South East Asia
Teeth
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Summary:The fossil ape Lufengpithecus is known from a number of late Miocene sites in Yunnan Province in southern China. Along with other fossil apes from South and Southeast Asia, it is widely considered to be a relative of the extant orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus. It is best represented at the type site of Shihuiba (Lufeng) by several partial to nearly complete but badly crushed adult crania. There is, however, an additional, minimally distorted cranium of a young juvenile from a nearly contemporaneous site in the Yuanmou Basin, which affords the opportunity to better assess the relationships between Lufengpithecus and PONGO: Comparison with similarly aged juvenile skulls of extant great apes reveals no features suggesting clear affinities to orangutans, and instead reveals a morphological pattern largely consistent with a stem member of the hominid (great ape and human) clade. The existence at this time of other hominids in South Asia (Sivapithecus) and Southeast Asia (Khoratpithecus) with clear craniofacial affinities to Pongo suggests both more diversity among Asian Late Miocene apes and more complex patterns of dispersal than previously supposed. Major differences in the associated mammal faunas from the southern China sites and those from South and Southeast Asia are consistent with these findings and suggest more than one dispersal route of apes into East Asia earlier in the Miocene.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1201330109