Papers by Jeffrey Schwartz
The Human Odyssey: Four million years of human evolution. By Ian Tattersall. New York: Prentice Hall. 1993. xii + 191 pp. ISBN 0‐971‐85005‐9. $27.50 (cloth)
American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1993
The Bulletin of zoological nomenclature., 2000
Journal of Human Evolution, 2006
The caves at Klasies River contain abundant archaeological evidence relating to human evolution i... more The caves at Klasies River contain abundant archaeological evidence relating to human evolution in the late Pleistocene of southern Africa. Along with Middle Stone Age artifacts, animal bones, and other food waste, there are hominin cranial fragments, mandibles with teeth, and a few postcranial remains. Three foot bones can now be added to this inventory. An adult first metatarsal is similar in size and discrete anatomical features to those from Holocene burials in the Cape Province. A complete and well-preserved second metatarsal is especially long and heavy at midshaft in comparison to all Holocene and more recent South African homologues. A large fifth metatarsal is highly distinctive in its morphology. In overall size, these pedal elements resemble specimens from late Pleistocene sites in western Asia, but there are some differences in proportions. The fossils support earlier suggestions concerning a relatively high level of sexual dimorphism in the African Middle Stone Age population. Squatting facets on the two lateral metatarsals appear to indicate a high frequency of kneeling among members of this group. The new postcranial material also underlines the fact that the morphology of particular skeletal elements of some of the 100,000-year-old Klasies River individuals falls outside the range of modern variation.
Toward a definition of "Homo neanderthalensis" and "Homo sapiens": I. the nasal region
NUMBER 76 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY NEW YORK: 1995 A broch... more NUMBER 76 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY NEW YORK: 1995 A brochure listing all the available anthropological reports that have been published by the Museum from 1896 to the present in the Anthropological Papers, Novitates, and Memoirs as well as the James Arthur Lectures on the Evolution ofthe Human Brain will be sent on request.
Fossils Attributed to Genus Homo : Some General Notes
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. eBooks, Jan 28, 2005
viding, where necessary, descriptions ofmore than one species per genus. We use character sets de... more viding, where necessary, descriptions ofmore than one species per genus. We use character sets derived from these descriptions as the basis for reconstructing evolutionary relationships among these genera, using a standard cladistic approach. These relationships are summarized in the cladogram given in figure 34. Potential affinities between the surviving "lower" primates and those ofthe Eocene are examined, and the Eocene family Adapidae is redefined to exclude those many fossil forms normally classified within it which do not share at least some of the dental apomorphies of Adapis. As thus restricted, Adapidae consists of Adapis (A. parisiensis, A. sudrez), Leptadapis (L. magnus, L. stintoni), Paradapis (P. ruetimeyeri), Alsatia (A. dunaifi), and Simonsia (S. lynnae). Comparison of adapid last deciduous premolars (upper and lower) with the anterior molars of indriids shows a striking morphological correspondence between these teeth and suggests a phylogenetic relationship between these two families, with which Lepilemur also appears affined. Similarly, certain dental characters of the cheirogaleid + lorisid + galagid group are also possessed by certain Eocene non-adapid (sensu stricto) forms, e.g., Anchomomys gaillardi and Periconodon helveticus; a larger clade subsuming all ofthese forms as a distinct subclade may also embrace Tarsius and at least some of the numerous fossil "tarsioids." 1985 13
Defining the genus <i>Homo</i>
Science, Aug 28, 2015
Early hominin species were as diverse as other mammals
Since the 1924 discovery of the Taung skull, a wealth of fossils has been recovered documenting t... more Since the 1924 discovery of the Taung skull, a wealth of fossils has been recovered documenting the early evolution of the human lineage in Africa. Whatever a researcher’s hypotheses or conclusions, ultimately the science is about these fossils. And over the last 80þ years, there have been more fossils found documenting human evolution than most people can any longer reasonably set to memory. Therefore, a book that compiles photographs and information about every published pre-Homo African hominid fossil would be extremely useful to all hominid paleontologists. With this thought in mind, I eagerly broke the spine on The Human Fossil Record Volume 4: Craniodental Morphology of Early Hominids (Genera Australopithecus, Paranthropus, Orrorin ), and Overview. As most readers are aware, this volume follows in a series of three other monographic treatments of hominid fossils: Volume 1, Terminology and Craniodental Morphology of Genus Homo (Europe); Volume 2, Craniodental Morphology of Genu...
We review the nonhylobatid hominoid fauna currently known from all significant Pleistocene sites ... more We review the nonhylobatid hominoid fauna currently known from all significant Pleistocene sites in Vietnam. Almost all of the sample examined consists of isolated teeth. In a previous study of material from the cave of Tham Khuyen (Schwartz et al., 1994) we identified, but ...
American Journal of Primatology, 1982
Reappraisal of the morphology of the type (and only) lower jaw of the Swiss middle Eocene primate... more Reappraisal of the morphology of the type (and only) lower jaw of the Swiss middle Eocene primate “Adapis” priscus shows that it is wrongly attributed to the genus Adapis. Indeed, its closest affinities do not lie with other European primates of the early Tertiary, but rather with the North American genus Smilodectes, to which we transfer the species priscus. The presence in Europe of a species of Smilodectes emphasizes that the separation of the Eocene primate faunas of Europe is substantially less complete than generally believed.
The Bulletin of zoological nomenclature., 1998
The purpose of this appHcation is to conserve the family names lorisidae Gray, 1821 and galagidae... more The purpose of this appHcation is to conserve the family names lorisidae Gray, 1821 and galagidae Gray, 1825 which are in use for two groups of prosimian primates, the lorises of Asia, East Indies and Africa, and the bushbabies of Africa. The families are based on the genera Loru and Galago, both of E. Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire (1796), and were first published as loridae and galagonina.
The morphological distinctiveness of Homo sapiens and its recognition in the fossil record: Clarifying the problem
Evolutionary Anthropology, Feb 22, 2008
Species are historically differentiated entities that, osteologically, may be differentiated to i... more Species are historically differentiated entities that, osteologically, may be differentiated to inconveniently varying extents. Living Homo sapiens is a distinctive morphological entity that is easily distinguished in both cranial and postcranial morphology from all other living hominoids and from the vast majority of its fossil relatives. In this contribution, we offer several apparent cranial apomorphies of the living species, while recognizing that it is reasonable to expect some degree of overlap in the ranges of variation of individual characters among closely related species such as those within the genus Homo. No one aspect of morphological detail may be considered totally diagnostic within very close‐knit groups of this sort or, conversely, be regarded as blurring the identities of their components. Overlap in morphological detail may even be expected in cases where striking Gestalt differences exist between closely related species due to major developmental reorganization. As a result, while the morphological and, by extension, historical distinction between such highly differentiated species pairs as Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens is effectively unequivocal, in a nod to the intrinsic untidiness of biology the hominid fossil record does offer some instances that are much more difficult to interpret. In such cases, most, but not all, of the cranial apomorphies of living Homo sapiens, are present in individual fossil specimens or apparent populations. This is true, for example, of a set of variably dated and archeologically associated, as well as mostly incomplete, South African fossils (for example, Border Cave, Boskop, Fish Hoek, and most Klasies River Mouth specimens). These specimens very closely resemble living Homo sapiens in preserved overall cranial structure, but most conspicuously lack bipartite brows and fully developed human chin configurations. Whatever resolutions hominid systematists may reach in such cases, it is clear that to resort reflexively to such pernicious if convenient devices as “archaic Homo sapiens” only obscures any potential signals of systematic diversity in what is increasingly evidently a highly complex late Pleistocene hominid record.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Jun 22, 1999
Diet and the Neanderthals
PubMed, 2000
The ultimate goal of paleoanthropological studies is to develop the most accurate and exhaustive ... more The ultimate goal of paleoanthropological studies is to develop the most accurate and exhaustive portraits possible of our extinct human relatives, and of the history by which we became what we are. This endeavor includes, in the first place, the essential processes of establishing the basic parameters of hominid diversity, and of elucidating the potential evolutionary relationships among the components of that diversity. But our efforts clearly need to go farther than this; for the overall picture of human evolution is quite evidently incomplete without consideration of early hominid lifeways, and of how now-vanished hominid species interacted with their environments. Among the most important interactions of this kind is, unquestionably, feeding behavior and the expression of such behaviors in diet. For, at least short of breathing, feeding is the most fundamental of all the subsistence activities in which a terrestrial species can engage. And we will never be able to claim to understand the lifeways of ancient hominids without at least some insight into how they sustained themselves. Self-evident as these remarks might be, however, they should not be taken to imply that--especially among eurytopes such as hominids--diet can, or should ever be regarded as, monolithic, or as an intrinsic property of any species. Nor do they mean that we can ever look upon hominid populations as "adapted" to particular food resources. Indeed, primates in general are remarkably varied in the diets that may be chosen by different populations of the same species, both seasonally and geographically [see, for example, the review of dietary variation among Malagasy strepsirhines in Tattersall, 1982]. Rather, amongst most if not all-living primates that have been studied, it appears--not surprisingly--that the factor, which most importantly controls immediate dietary intake, is the spectrum of potential food resources available within the local environment. Not to put too fine a point on it, most primates are opportunists.
Craniodental morphology and the systematics of the Malagasy lemurs (Primates, Prosimii). Anthropological papers of the AMNH ; v. 52, pt. 3
p. 139-192 : ill. ; 26 cm.Bibliography: p. 190-192
The anatomical record, Aug 1, 1998
Morphology carries the primary signal of events in the evolutionary history of any group of organ... more Morphology carries the primary signal of events in the evolutionary history of any group of organisms but has been relatively neglected by paleoanthropologists, those who study the history of the human species. Partly this is the result of historical influences, but it is also due to a rather fundamentalist adherence among paleoanthropologists to the tenets of the Neodarwinian Evolutionary Synthesis. The result has been a general paleoanthropological desire to project the species Homo sapiens back into the past as far and in as linear a manner as possible. However, it is clear that the human fossil record, like that of most other taxa, reveals a consistent pattern of systematic diversity-a diversity totally unreflected in the conventional minimalist interpretation of that record. Thus, the Neanderthals, both morphologically and behaviorally as distinctive a group of hominids as ever existed, are conventionally classified simply as a subspecies of our own species Homo sapiens-a classification that robs these extinct relatives of their evolutionary individuality. Only when we recognize the Neanderthals as a historically distinctive evolutionary entity, demanding understanding in its own terms, will we be able to do them proper justice. And we will only be able to do this by restoring morphology to its proper place of primacy in human evolutionary studies. Anat. Rec. (New Anat.
Ramapithecus and Hominid Origins [and Comments and Reply]
Current Anthropology, Oct 1, 1982
... For these reasons, and because the early hominid dietary adaptation involved plant foods rath... more ... For these reasons, and because the early hominid dietary adaptation involved plant foods rather than meat (as Darwin had suggested), neither culture nor tool use played a role in his hominid-origins model (much to the apparent relief of some of the more paleontologically ...
Biological Theory, Dec 1, 2006
Although molecular systematists may use the terminology of cladism, claiming that the reconstruct... more Although molecular systematists may use the terminology of cladism, claiming that the reconstruction of phylogenetic relationships is based on shared derived states (synapomorphies), the latter is not the case. Rather, molecular systematics is (largely) based on the assumption, first clearly articulated by Zuckerkandl and Pauling (1962), that degree of overall similarity reflects degree of relatedness. This assumption derives from interpreting molecular similarity (or dissimilarity) between taxa in the context of a Darwinian model of continual and gradual change. Review of the history of molecular systematics and its claims in the context of molecular biology reveals that there is no basis for the "molecular assumption."
American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2010
Our species Homo sapiens has never received a satisfactory morphological definition. Deriving par... more Our species Homo sapiens has never received a satisfactory morphological definition. Deriving partly from Linnaeus's exhortation simply to ''know thyself,'' and partly from the insistence by advocates of the Evolutionary Synthesis in the mid-20th Century that species are constantly transforming ephemera that by definition cannot be pinned down by morphology, this unfortunate situation has led to huge uncertainty over which hominid fossils ought to be included in H. sapiens, and even over which of them should be qualified as ''archaic'' or as ''anatomically modern,'' a debate that is an oddity in the broader context of paleontology. Here, we propose a suite of features that seems to characterize all H. sapiens alive today, and we review the fossil evidence in light of those features, paying particular attention to the bipartite brow and the ''chin'' as examples of how, given the continuum from developmentally regulated
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Papers by Jeffrey Schwartz