an emergent
website design
by
peter jay stein, md, ma
atmosphere
asthenosphere
lithosphere
regolith
biosphere
hydrosphere
This 54 page synopsis of the evolution
of the Earth, the origin and progression of life, and the
emergence of humans as descendants of the hominin lineage, divides the last 4.57 billion years into progressively overlapping, imagistic, time segments, to outline our place in biological existence.
magnetosphere
ionosphere
PHYLUM: CHORDATA
CLASS: MAMMALS
ORDER: PRIMATES
SUBPHYLUM: VERTEBRATES
KINGDOM: ANIMALIA
based on features #1-13, below, early "true primate" (euprimate) fossil evidence reveals:
small,
nocturnal,
tree-living species,
in tropical forests of the
warm, (early) EOCENE (56-34 mya) epoch
Primate features:
1) Grasping foot with divergent hallux (big toe)
2) Hallux nail, not claw
3) Heel (calcaneous) elongation
4) Hindlimb dominance during locomotion
5) Grasping hands with opposable thumbs
6) Nails on most digits
7) Greater degree of forward rotation of eyes
8) Eyes set closer together, for stereoscopic vision
9) Increasing brain size
10) Longer period of gestation
11) slower fetal growth,
12) Longer life-span
13) loss of 1 incisor and 1 pre-molar per tooth row (per quadrant?)
Sorting Out Sixty Million Years:
The Emergence Of Primates-
On The Way To Becoming Human
adapted from
The Complete World of Human Evolution, Stringer, C., 2005, p. 82-83
and
Primate Adaptation & Evolution, Fleagle, J., 3rd Edition, 2013, p. 57,83
DOMAIN: EUKARYA
altiatlasius
earliest proto-primate fossils
65 -55 mya
aegyptopithecus
[propliopithecoid zeuxis]
34 - 30 mya
anthropoid
arboreal fruit-eater,
discovered by
Elwyn Simons
Fayum, Egypt
proconsul [proconsul heseloni]
20 mya
ape-like teeth
may represent the divergence
of
apes from man
THE EMERGENCE OF PRIMATES
adapted from multiple sources: see Bibliography)
to form the Himalayan uplift
to form Himalayan uplift
Plesiadapiformes: extinct, early paleocene, insectivore, mammal, possibly the last common ancestor (LCA) of all primates (see Kendrick, J.), comprised of 14 species, only sharing primate features of a slightly enlarged brain, and primate-like molars
(see primate features, below)
TWENTY-SEVEN
Emergent Primates III
EPOCH: PALEOCENE
66 - 56 mya
EPOCH: OLIGOCENE
34 - 23 mya
EPOCH: MIOCENE
23 - 5.3 mya
EPOCH: EOCENE
56 - 34 mya
Eocene is Greek for "dawn" and "new":
Darwinius Masillae
strepsirrhine
47 mya
discovered in Messel, Germany 1983
Infra-order: Adapiformes
resembles modern lemur
middle Eocene
basal primate characteristics
ancestor to modern lemurs & lorises
Eosimias
"Dawn Monkey"
haplorhine
known by its fossil jaw and skull fragments
considered an example of the earliest
anthropoid
(45 mya).
195 mya