Stereometrics In Primate Taxonomy And Phylogeny

Norman Creel

doi:10.1117/12.956968

29 July 1980 Stereometrics In Primate Taxonomy And Phylogeny

Norman Creel

Proceedings Volume 0166, NATO Symposium on Applications of Human Biostereometrics; (1980) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.956968
Event: NATO Symposium on Applications of Human Biostereometrics, 1978, Paris, France

Abstract

Studies of the systematic relationships within the primate taxa Homo, Hylobatidae (lesser apes), Hominoidea (apes and man) and Colobinae (Asian and African leaf monkeys) are described. All are based in large part on multivariate statistical analyses of cranial morphology. Adequate quantification of the frequently complex and subtle differences in the morphology of the animals being compared, as well as the inclusion of statistically adequate samples of as many presumed species or other groups of interest as possible, are essential to the success of such analyses. Two methods of stereometric measurement have been developed to make this possible. In initial studies of the Hylobatidae and the Hominoidea, a simple mechanical device was designed which determines the tri-dimensional coordinates of an anatomical point by measuring an angle and two distances. An improved version was used in an investigation of Subsaharan human crania. In a taxonomic revision of the Colobinae now in progress, crania are photographed in several views with a pair of metric cameras; point coordinates are then measured in a modified stereoplotter and the views rotated mathematically into a single coordinate system. Although stereometrics is only one component in a complex system of analysis, it is an extremely important one. Taxonomic revisions of the described scope and depth could not be carried out with conventional methods of measurement without a much greater commitment of resources, if at all.

Citation Download Citation

Norman Creel "Stereometrics In Primate Taxonomy And Phylogeny", Proc. SPIE 0166, NATO Symposium on Applications of Human Biostereometrics, (29 July 1980); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.956968

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