Geology and Primate Origins 205

Using the principles of stratigraphy, we can determine which strata are older and
younger. Comparisons between sites can provide a sequence of rocks from older to
younger for both areas. By comparing the stratigraphy of sites from around the world,
especially for marine sediments that are very continuous, geologists have assembled
a great geological column from the very oldest to the very youngest rocks on Earth
(Figure 9.4 on pages 206–207). This geological column, with age estimates provided by
dating techniques discussed later in this chapter, is called the geologic time scale.
Finally, the principle of faunal succession, first proposed in 1815 by William Smith
(whose nickname was “Strata” because of his passion for stratigraphy), addresses
the changes or succession of fauna (animals) through layers. Smith recognized not
only that deeper fauna is older, but also that there are predictable sequences of fauna
through strata: successive layers contain certain types of animal communities whose
fossils follow one another in predictable patterns through the strata (Figure 9.5 on
page 208). Certain kinds of these animals that typify a layer are called index fossils. Fur-
thermore, Smith noted that once a type of fossil leaves a section, it does not reappear
higher in the section. With the benefit of Darwin’s work, we know this is because once
a species goes extinct, it cannot reappear later (and so cannot be fossilized in younger
sediments).

The Geologic Time Scale

The geologic time scale (GTS) is divided into nested sets of time. From most inclusive geologic time scale (GTS)
to least inclusive, these are eons, eras, periods, and epochs (Figure 9.6 on page 209). The categories of time into which
Earth itself is approximately 4.5 billion years old, and the GTS covers this entire time, Earth’s history is usually divided
although human and primate evolution occurs only in the Cenozoic Era, or about the by geologists and paleontologists:
last 65 million years. eons, eras, periods, epochs.
The scale is divided into two eons, the Precambrian and Phanerozoic. The Precam-
brian dates from 4.5 billion to 543 million years ago and is divided into three eras: the
Hadean, Archean, and Proterozoic. The Phanerozoic Eon dates from 543 million years
ago to the present. The term -zoic in each of these names refers to the presence of animals.
Although we will spend the next several chapters discussing the fossil record
of only the last 65 million years (the Cenozoic Era), take a moment to consider the
enormity of time represented by Earth’s entire history, 4.5 billion years (Figure 9.6
on page 209). Primates are present for a little less than 1.5% of that tremendous span,
and humans and our closest ancestors are present for only about 0.1% of that time.
To put this in perspective, think about your seven-day spring break. On this scale,
the Primates have existed for about 2.4 hours, and the human lineage for only about
11 minutes and 20 seconds!
Mammals arose in the Mesozoic Era; Mesozoic literally means “middle age of
animals,” but the era is often called the “age of reptiles” because of the abundance of
dinosaurs. The Mesozoic spans 248–65 million years ago and has three periods: the
Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. The Cenozoic, or recent age of animals, spans from
65 million years ago to present and has two periods: the Tertiary and Quaternary.
The Tertiary Period, from 65 to 2.5 million years ago, spans parts of five epochs: the
Paleocene (65–54.8 million years ago), Eocene (54.8–33.7 million years ago), Oligocene
(33.7–23.8 million years ago), Miocene (23.8–5.3 million years ago), and the first part
of the Pliocene (5.3–2.5 million years ago). The Quaternary Period, from 2.5 million
years ago to present, spans parts of three epochs: the remainder of the Pliocene (2.5–
1.8 million years ago), the Pleistocene (1.8 million years ago to 10,000 years ago), and
the Holocene (10,000 years ago to present). We live in the Holocene Epoch of the Qua-
ternary Period of the Cenozoic Era of the Phanerozoic Eon.
The lengths of epochs, periods, and eras are not evenly spaced in the GTS.
Boundaries are placed at points in the time scale where large shifts are evident in
the geological column. For example, the boundary between the Cretaceous Period
 Formation of Earth-Moon system Outgasing produces
primitive atmosphere Oldest known fossils
stromatolite-forming
cyanobacteria
4,500 m.y.a.
3,800 m.y.a.
ARCHEAN
Cambrian EON (PREC
AMBRIA
explosion N)

First jawless fish 2,500 m.y.a.

)
IAN
MBR
RECA
First
OZOIC
EON (P Oxygen
insects CAMBRIAN PERIOD PROTER accumulates
ORDOVICIAN PERIOD First multicelled organism in atmosphere
RA 540 m.y.a. (1,000 m.y.a.)
Fishes SILURIAN PERIOD ZOIC E (2,200 m.y.a.)
flourish PALEO
First vascular plants Dominance of
DEVONIAN PERIOD invade the land amphibians
MISSISSIPPIAN First
PERIOD PENNSYLVANIAN PERIOD mammals

PERMIAN PERIOD
Gymnosperms PALEOZ
flourish OIC ER TRIASSIC PERIOD
A
First
amphibians Great Permian JUR
extinction
248 m.y.a.
MESO
First reptiles First dinosaurs Dinosaurs
Extensive
coal swamps dominate

First wh

Extinction of
many giant
mammals

HOLOCENE
EPOCH PLEIST
EP

Present

Figure 9.4  Earth’s history spans 4.5 billion years. Geologists and paleontologists
have pieced together the history of the earth by correlating rock strata and
examining the fossils within those rocks. Most of Earth’s history is lifeless. Primates
arise only about 65 million years ago, and the human lineage only 6 million years
ago. Understanding primates in their geological context is critical to understanding
their adaptations and evolution. The time line is not drawn to scale; vastly more time
is represented by the Hadean, Archean, and Proterozoic (about 4 billion years) than
by all of the later periods, which span only the last 540 million years.

206
 2,500 m.y.a.

gen
umulates
mosphere
00 m.y.a.)

First flowering
Conifers
First birds plants
mals abundant

JURASSIC PERIOD

CRETACEOUS Mammals, birds,

MESO
ZOIC PERIOD insects,
E RA Plesiadapiforms
and flowering
plants
PALEOCENE EPOCH flourish
65.5
Extinction of dinosaurs m.y.a.
and many other species First true primates

EOCENE EPOCH
First whales First apes

First monkeys
OLIGOCENE EPOCH

MIOCENE EPOCH
PLIOCENE
EPOCH

Evolution of
NE Genus Homo
PLEISTOCENE A
ER
OIC
EPOCH
NOZ
C E
. a.
.5 m.y
2

207
208  Chapter 9

Figure 9.5  The principle of faunal succession uses animal

fossils to tell relative time.

Younger
FOSSIL
SUCCESSION
Youngest

Time

Oldest
Older

of the Mesozoic and the Tertiary Period of the Cenozoic Era (or the Cretaceous/
Tertiary [K–T] boundary) records a great change in animal taxa: the drastic decrease
of dinosaur species and increasing number of mammals. The boundary between the
Tertiary and Quaternary periods signals the onset of glacial events in the Northern
Hemisphere, and it was recently moved from 1.8 to 2.5 million years ago to reflect
evidence for glaciations becoming severe at that time. Some geologists have argued
that the lower boundary of the Pleistocene should also be moved to 2.5 million years
ago (Gibbard et al., 2010). But because this is a source of much debate and much
of the paleontological literature is based on the traditional understanding of these
divisions, we use the traditional boundary of 1.8 million years for the Pleistocene
(Gradstein et al., 2004).

How Old Is It?

9.3 Describe how scientists use the many relative and chronometric dating
techniques to establish the age of rock layers and the organisms they contain.
How do we know where in the geologic time scale a site and the fossils within it
fall? A vital first step in determining the antiquity of fossil remains is learning their
provenience provenience, the precise location from which the fossils come. After we have estab-
The origin or original source (as of lished provenience, we can apply a wide variety of techniques to estimating their
a fossil). age. There are three main ways to estimate age.
 Geology and Primate Origins 209

Figure 9.6  Earth’s history is divided into nested sets of time—eons, eras, periods,
and epochs—and is called the geologic time scale.

Millions
Era Period Epoch
of years
ago
Holocene 0.01
Millions Quaternary Pleistocene 1.8
Eon Era of years
ago 2.5 Pliocene 5.3
Cenozoic 65 Cenozoic Miocene 23.8
Mesozoic 248 Tertiary Oligocene 33.7
Phanerozoic
Eocene 54.8
Paleozoic 540
Paleocene 65.0
Late 900
Cretaceous 144
Proterozoic

Middle 1600
Mesozoic
Jurassic 206

Triassic 248
Early 2500
Precambrian

Permian 290

Carboniferous Pennsylvanian 323

Late 3000
Archean

Mississippian 354
Middle 3400

Devonian 417
Early 3800 Paleozoic
Silurian 443
Hadean

4500 Ordovician 490

Cambrian 540

Precambrian

Relative Dating Techniques

Relative dating techniques use the principles of stratigraphy to tell us how old some- relative dating techniques
thing is in relation to something else without applying an actual chronological age. If Dating techniques that establish
you say you have an older brother, we know your relative ages even though we do not the age of a fossil only in compari-
know whether the two of you are 6 and 16 years old, 19 and 25, or 60 and 65. Relative son to other materials found above
dating techniques include lithostratigraphy, tephrostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and and below it.
chemical methods.
lithostratigraphy
Lithostratigraphy    Lithostratigraphy uses the characteristics of the rock layers The study of geologic deposits and
themselves to correlate across regions (litho refers to rock). For example, if millions of their formation, stratigraphic rela-
years ago a layer of limestone was formed by an inland sea that extended over a large tionships, and relative time rela-
area of West Virginia, across Pennsylvania, and into New York, then we would expect tionships based on their lithologic
(rock) properties.
to see the limestone layer in all these areas even if there are different sequences of rock
layers above and below the limestone. Therefore, the limestone layer allows us to cor- tephrostratigraphy
relate the widely separated sequences of rock layers (Figure 9.7 on page 210). A form of lithostratigraphy in
Volcanic deposits can be identified by the chemical components of their strata us- which the chemical fingerprint of
ing tephrostratigraphy and can be used to demonstrate time equivalence even in a volcanic ash is used to correlate
widely separated sites. This technique has been used with great success in the Turkana across regions.
210  Chapter 9

Figure 9.7  Lithostratigraphy uses the correlation of rock units to estimate the relative age of different
areas. The overlapping rock units for U.S. parks show that the Grand Canyon contains strata that are
mostly older than those at Zion National Park, and that Bryce Canyon National Park is the youngest.

Zion Canyon Bryce Canyon

Grand Canyon

Tertiary Zion Bryce Wasatch Fm

National Canyon
Park National
Park Kaiparowits Fm
UTAH
ARIZONA Wahweap Ss
NEVADA
Cretaceous Grand Canyon Straight Cliffs Ss
National
Park Tropic Shale

Dakota Ss

Winsor Fm

Curtis Fm
Jurassic Entrada Ss
Carmel Fm Carmel Fm

Navajo Ss Navajo Ss

Kayenta Fm
Older rocks not exposed
Wingate Ss
Triassic Chinle Fm

Moenkopi Fm
Moenkopi Fm

Kaibab Ls
Kaibab Ls
Permian Toroweap Fm
Coconino Ss Older rocks not exposed
Hermit Shale

Pennsylvanian Supai Fm

Mississippian Redwall Ls
Devonian Temple Butte Ls
Muav Fm
Cambrian Bright Angel Shale
Tapeats Ss

Colorado
Precambrian River Vishnu Schist

Grand Canyon National Park Zion National Park Bryce Canyon National Park

Basin of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, where researchers have made many
important discoveries of ancestral human fossils.

biostratigraphy Biostratigraphy    Biostratigraphy uses Smith’s principle of faunal succession

Relative dating technique using
comparison of fossils from dif-
ferent stratigraphic sequences to
estimate which layers are older
and which are younger.
(Figure 9.5) to correlate age between sites and across regions based on the index fossils
found at those sites. The presence of certain index fossils, such as pigs or rodents, tells
you only how old the site is relative to other sites with similar or different animals. An
absolute age (that is, 1.6 million years old) can be assigned only if other sites with
these index fossils have absolute ages. For example, the rodent fossils found at the
Dmanisi Homo erectus site in the Republic of Georgia tell us the site must be older than
1.6 million years because these rodents go extinct in Europe after this time.