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What can monkey fossils tell us about early human evolution? New insights from the analysis of molar cusp proportions in fossil cercopithecoids from Laetoli, Tanzania

Laetoli, Tanzania preserves the earliest fossils attributed to Australopithecus afarensis (3.7 mya). A diversity of non‐human primates including cercopithecoid monkeys have also been recovered. Cercopithecoids provide valuable insights into the paleoenvironments they shared with early humans and, by extension, early hominin paleobiology. Although cercopithecoid fossils at Laetoli represent both more omnivorous cercopihecines and more folivorous and arboreal colobines, the former is more abundant. The diversity and proportion of cercopithecoids figures prominently in debate over the prevalence of closed woodland/forested environments vs more open scrub/bushland. This study uses dental morphometrics to establish the morphological affinity of molar crowns from additional cercopithecoid craniodental fossils recovered from Laetoli localities 1, 2, 6 and 7 to clarify the paleoenvironmental context of our early human ancestors.