ABSTRACT
We have chronicled an evolutionary journey through time, from the earliest vertebrates through to ourselves and the living forms that share the planet with us. This book has focused on the primate era of evolution. We have recounted the fossil discoveries and gleaned from them notions of the evolutionary processes that led to our own existence. Primate origins were traced to a time during the Eocene geological epoch approximately 55 mya, shortly after the demise of the dinosaurs—if “shortly” can be perceived on the scale of geological time. Only within the past 6 million years or so, another “short” period of time, do we have clear evidence, as well as some that is not so clear, of our human origins—distinct from the evolutionary paths of all other animals.
