Morphological affinities of recently discovered fossil cercopithecids from the Pliocene Upper Laetolil Beds in Laetoli, Tanzania

The Laetoli paleoanthropological site in northern Tanzania continues to yield one of the oldest Australopithecus afarensis collection as well as other well preserved non-hominin primate remains, including primate cercopithecids. The Laetoli primates are highly diversified, including fossil galagines, parapithecids and paracolobines. These primate species are indicative of highly variable depositional environments at Laetoli that would have been more wooded or forested with patches of bushes, thorn scrubs and open habitats. For example, extant cercopithecines tend to thrive in a wide range of habitats from grasslands to dense woodlands, forests and tree-covered rocky outcrops. This thesis presents qualitative descriptions and a computational statistical analysis of odontometrics for the posterior teeth of fossil and extant primates in order to classify recently recovered Laetoli fossil primate remains by the University of Colorado Denver Tanzania field school in paleoanthropology. The results of this analysis will help give a better understanding of the ecological diversity exploited at Laetoli.