Colloquium Paper: Reconstructing Human Evolution: Achievements, Challenges, and Opportunities

Overview

Journal Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Specialty Science

Date 2010 May 7

PMID 20445105

Citations 18

Authors

Bernard Wood

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

This contribution reviews the evidence that has resolved the branching structure of the higher primate part of the tree of life and the substantial body of fossil evidence for human evolution. It considers some of the problems faced by those who try to interpret the taxonomy and systematics of the human fossil record. How do you to tell an early human taxon from one in a closely related clade? How do you determine the number of taxa represented in the human clade? How can homoplasy be recognized and factored into attempts to recover phylogeny?

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