Technical Summary 
Anthropoid Evolution
Many of the interesting traits and functions that we study in primates are housed in the skull: the brain, facial expressions, sight, smell, and vocalization, to name a few. Because of its importance to primates such as ourselves, evolution of skull form and function is a great open question of evolutionary anthropology. The fact that we share so many aspects of our development and our genetic makeup with other primates allows us to learn much about human evolutionary history by looking at non-human primates.
Anthropoids
Non-anthropoids
Figure 1. What is an anthropoid? Anthropoid primates include all living monkeys and apes (including humans), and exclude prosimians and tarsiers. Above (right to left): capuchin monkeys, a chimpanzee, and a macaque. Below: a tarsier (left) and a lemur (a prosimian).
Baboons and other living monkeys, as well as apes and humans, are anthropoid (literally, “human-like”) primates. In addition to being numerous and easily adaptable to captivity, baboons (and their ancestors) are well-represented in the fossil record. All of these traits make them an excellent model species for scientific research. Additionally, the baboons are part of a radiation of primates—the papionins—that includes many other closely-related species that exhibit a range of skull shapes. For this reason, the papionins are a useful group of primates with which to model the differences in skull form that we find in the fossil record of hominids (humans and their closest ancestors). In this project we take advantage of similarities between hominids and papionins to learn about how certain features (like small teeth and a big brain) have been selected for during human evolution.
Figure 2. What is a papionin? The papionin monkeys include macaques, mangabeys, and several baboon-like species. Left to right: arboreal mangabey, mandrill, gelada baboon, olive baboon.
