Primates and humans: a contrast in style

There could not be two more dissimilar approaches to primate evolution than is seen in these two books. One is the individual approach of two anthropologists who personally visited and studied, at first hand, most, if not all of the fossil humans described in The Human Fossil Record. The book is limited just to fossil taxa generally recognized as belonging to the subfamily Homininae (which the authors persist in calling Hominidae), and it includes a specimen-by-specimen description of hominin fossils from Europe. The Primate Fossil Record is an edited compilation of all primates up to and including hominins, and is a taxonomic account with only a few specimens described or illustrated individually. To a certain extent, the division of subject matter dictates these two approaches, for although the limited distribution and taxonomic scope of one subfamily still makes it possible for one or two workers to encompass the full range of hominin specimens, it is now beyond the scope of any one person to embrace the full range of fossil primates. Thus, the books provide a coherent, if slightly idiosyncratic, account of the fossil hominin record contrasted with a brilliant, if slightly uneven, series of articles about fossil primates. The Primate Fossil Record is notable for the completeness of its coverage of primate evolution, in contrast to the selective nature of The Human Fossil Record. Other contrasts include the emphasis in the former on taxonomy and relationships of fossil primates compared with the more gradistic emphasis on specimen-by-specimen descriptions in the latter. The Primate Fossil Record is divided into five main sections reflecting the major taxonomic divisions of the order. Four of the sections are prefaced by short, general accounts of the taxonomy of the groups, which are rather variable in nature and approach, with the most useful being the introductions to the basal primates and to the Hominoidea. There is more consistency in the treatment of the major groups, with the section about the earliest primates standing out as a wonderful and beautifully organized resource. Each chapter has genus-bygenus descriptions followed by comparative discussions of palaeoenvironment and adaptations for all groups of early primates (which, in the context of this book, are taken to be the Euprimates). As the fossil record of New World monkeys is poorer than that for Eocene primates, the chapters are necessarily more brief. The descriptions of fossil Old World monkeys vary from too little in one chapter to far too much in another and, for the Hominoidea, three excellent chapters, beautifully illustrated, contrastwithonerather longchapter with poor illustrations. Finally, the last section about ‘hominids’ has two excellent chapters about the earliest hominins and the genus Homo, but the introduction is disappointing in that it makes no attempt to place hominins in their phylogenetic position, in relation to their group, unlike previous introductory chapters. The taxonomic approach breaks down completely in the final chapter covering the more recent Homo species, with the unstated implication that they should all be attributed to Homo sapiens. The Human Fossil Record contrasts with the taxonomic treatment of the first book, although it follows the tradition of specimen descriptions that is still such a feature of hominin studies. It is the first of four volumes, with the later volumes covering other areas (Africa and Asia) and earlier fossils. It lacks any systematic base, which seems strange in a book written by two such notable systematists and, although they say that they are reserving the systematic discussion to a later volume (Vol. 3), the present volume is the poorer for this omission. Each chapter is organized consistently, describing fossil sites but with the emphasis on detailed morphological descriptions of the relevant hominin fossils; this is followed by standard photographs of most or all of the specimens. No measurements are included. The photographs, although quite complete for each of the specimens, are poorly reproduced and lack definition, which, combined with the absence of any measurements, reduces the research value of this volume. In their preface, Schwartz and Tattersall compare their Corresponding author: Peter Andrews (p.andrews@nhm.ac.uk). Update TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution Vol.18 No.5 May 2003 218