Origins and evolution of African Hominidae

Abstract

This chapter presents the primary evidence for the evolution of Hominidae in Africa since the upper Miocene. The oldest occurrences of Hominidae are restricted to sub-Saharan Africa. In eastern Africa all known occurrences are related to the Rift Valley System, in Ethiopia, in Kenya and in Tanzania. The type specimens of most Pliocene-Pleistocene Hominidae derive from cemented infillings of fissures, sinkholes and caves of the South African Highveld and the Transvaal plateau basin. The chapter presents an overview of the documentation in Africa of the fossil record of the family Hominidae, which is not always either straightforward or well defined, so that it is necessary to stress the tentative and even uncertain nature of interpretations and inferences. Fragments of hominoid fossils of Upper Miocene age from Kenya have been considered by several workers to be attributable to Hominidae. The small species (africanus) of Australopithecus occurs in deposits of Pliocene age in southern and in eastern Africa.