The diet of early anthropoids – the ancestors of apes and monkeys – has long been debated. Did these early primates display behaviours and diets similar to modern species, or did they have much humbler beginnings?
Read more: Revelations from 17-million-year-old ape teeth could lead to new insights on early human evolution Fossils of our earliest ancestors The Fayum Depression in the Western Desert of Egypt offers one of the largest and best-preserved collections of fossil primates from this time frame. Between 35 and 29.2 million years ago , the Fayum sat on the lush northern coast of Africa.
Dietary interpretations Dental evidence is a powerful tool in palaeontology. Our new study examined dental wear and disease in fossilised teeth from five Fayum anthropoid primates: Aegyptopithecus, Parapithecus, Propliopithecus, Apidium and Catopithecus. A mere 5% of teeth show chipping . This is substantially lower than the frequency observed in most modern anthropoids, where chipping frequencies range from 4% to 40% of teeth.