Quantifying the Quality of the Non-Hominin Hominoids and Elucidating Geological and Anthropogenic Biases

Quantifying the Quality of the Non-Hominin Hominoids and Elucidating Geological and Anthropogenic Biases

Rosie May Lock

Daniel Cashmore

Hominoidea is a superfamily of Primates comprising all ancient and extant apes, including the lineage that led to Homo sapiens. The fossil record belonging to this superfamily is imperfect due to environmental, spatial, and collection biases. This preliminary study uses previously devised metrics to quantify the completeness of the fossil record of non-hominin (not direct ancestors of Homo) hominoids, to highlight critical knowledge gaps that may be hindering our understanding of hominoid evolution.

palaeontology, fossils, fossil record, biases, apes, skeletal completeness.