User:Abyssal/Prehistory of Africa

The Prehistory of Africa Portal In general... The prehistory of Africa spans from the earliest human presence in Africa until the ancient period in the history of Africa. (Full article...) Selected article on prehistoric Africa Life restoration of Babakotia radofilai. Babakotia is an extinct genus of medium-sized lemur, or strepsirrhine primate, from Madagascar that contains a single species, Babakotia radofilai. Together with Palaeopropithecus, Archaeoindris, and Mesopropithecus, it forms the family Palaeopropithecidae, commonly known as the sloth lemurs. Due to its mix of morphological traits that show intermediate stages between the slow-moving smaller sloth lemurs and the suspensory large sloth lemurs, it has helped determine the relationship between both groups and the closely related and extinct monkey lemurs. Babakotia radofilai and all other sloth lemurs share many traits with living sloths, demonstrating convergent evolution. It had long forearms, curved digits, and highly mobile hip and ankle joints. Its skull was more heavily built than that of indriids, but not as much as in the larger sloth lemurs. Its dentition is similar to that of all other indriids and sloth lemurs. It lived in the northern part of Madagascar and shared its range with at least two other sloth lemur species, Palaeopropithecus ingens and Mesopropithecus dolichobrachion. Babakotia radofilai was primarily a leaf-eater (folivore), though it also ate fruit and hard seeds. It is known only from subfossil remains and may have died out shortly after the arrival of humans on the island, but not enough radiocarbon dating has been done with this species to know for certain. (see more...) Selected article on the prehistory of Africa in human science, culture and economics Jaw fragment of Ambondro mahabo. The history of paleontology traces the history of the effort to understand the history of life on Earth by studying the fossil record left behind by living organisms. Since it is concerned with understanding living organisms of the past paleontology can be considered to be a field of biology, but its historical development has been closely tied to geology and the effort to understand the history of the Earth itself. In ancient times Xenophanes (570-480 BC), Herodotus (484-425 BC), Eratosthenes (276-194 BC), and Strabo (64 BC-24 AD), wrote about fossils of marine organisms indicating that land was once under water. During the Middle Ages, fossils were discussed by the Persian naturalist, Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in Europe), in The Book of Healing (1027), which proposed a theory of petrifying fluids that Albert of Saxony would elaborate on in the 14th century. The Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) would propose a theory of climate change based on evidence from petrified bamboo. In early modern Europe, the systematic study of fossils emerged as an integral part of the changes in natural philosophy that occurred during the Age of Reason. The nature of fossils and their relationship to life in the past became better understood during the 17th and 18th centuries, and at the end of the 18th century the work of Georges Cuvier ended a long running debate about the reality of extinction and led to the emergence of paleontology, in association with comparative anatomy, as a scientific discipline. The expanding knowledge of the fossil record also played an increasing role in the development of geology, particularly stratigraphy. In 1822 the word "paleontology" was invented by the editor of a French scientific journal to refer to the study of ancient living organisms through fossils, and the first half of the 19th century saw geological and paleontological activity become increasingly well organized with the growth of geologic societies and museums and an increasing number of professional geologists and fossil specialists. This contributed to a rapid increase in knowledge about the history of life on Earth, and progress towards definition of the geologic time scale largely based on fossil evidence. As knowledge of life's history continued to improve, it became increasingly obvious that there had been some kind of successive order to the development of life. This would encourage early evolutionary theories on the transmutation of species. After Charles Darwin published Origin of Species in 1859, much of the focus of paleontology shifted to understanding evolutionary paths, including human evolution, and evolutionary theory. The last half of the 19th century saw a tremendous expansion in paleontological activity, especially in North America. The trend continued in the 20th century with additional regions of the Earth being opened to systematic fossil collection, as demonstrated by a series of important discoveries in China near the end of the 20th century. Many transitional fossils have been discovered, and there is now considered to be abundant evidence of how all classes of vertebrates are related, much of it in the form of transitional fossils. The last few decades of the 20th century saw a renewed interest in mass extinctions and their role in the evolution of life on Earth. There was also a renewed interest in the Cambrian explosion that saw the development of the body plans of most animal phyla. The discovery of fossils of the Ediacaran biota and developments in paleobiology extended knowledge about the history of life back far before the Cambrian. (see more...) Need help? Do you have a question about Abyssal/Prehistory of Africa that you can't find the answer to? Consider asking it at the Wikipedia reference desk. Selected image The mounted lectotype skeleton of the Late Jurassic stegosaur Kentrosaurus aethiopicus in the Museum für Naturkunde of Berlin, Germany. The specimen was a partial 4.5 m long individual excavated from the "St" quarry at Kindope, Tendaguru, Tanzania. Photo credit: H. Zell Did you know? ... that members of the extinct bivalve family Bakevelliidae have shells made from rectangular calcium prisms and mother of pearl? ... that a novel type of aerodynamic arrowhead, the Abu Madi Point, was found at the prehistoric site of Abu Madi, Egypt? ... that a fossil of the Middle Permian therocephalian Blattoidealestes represents the oldest record of multicuspid teeth among theriodonts, the ancestors of mammals? ... that major discoveries in the history of ceratosaur research include horned predators like Ceratosaurus (pictured), Majungasaurus, and Carnotaurus, as well as a bonebed of the projecting-toothed Masiakasaurus? ... that Ambondro, which lived in Madagascar about 167 million years ago, is the oldest known mammal with modern, tribosphenic molars? Things you can do Desired articles, sorted by how frequently linked to: Kufra Basin Douala Basin Todi Shear Zone Somali Coastal Basin Rio del Rey Basin Broodkop Shear Zone Western Meseta Shear Zone Foreland Karoo Basin Chuan Shear Zones Atbara rift Orange River Basin Tanzania Coastal Basin Sangha aulacogen Reggane Basin Lamu Embayment Gabon Basin Geology of Africa Geology of Tristan da Cunha Geology of the Canary Islands Geology of Melilla Frank Skeels Sileshi Semaw Nomtsas Formation Amuq point Kaoko Belt Dahhak ibn Jandal Baharîje Formation Madumabisa Mudstone Acacia elatior El-Amrah Urusis Formation Pietermaritzburg Formation Dwyka Formation Bernard Ngeneo Zaris Formation Werner Kaiser (Egyptologist) Dwyka Shale Vryheid Formation Loita Hills As Duma Allia Bay Levalloiso-Mousterian Dabis Formation Somali Basin Pentoxylales Deir Tasa Peter Nzube Subcategories Prehistory of Africa Prehistoric Africa Geology of Africa Fossils of Africa Prehistoric life of Africa Precambrian Africa Related content Prehistory of North America Prehistory of South America Prehistory of Antarctica Prehistory of Asia Prehistory of Europe Prehistory of Oceania Africa Archaeology Earth sciences Paleontology Extinct and Endangered Species Paleozoic Mesozoic Cenozoic Dinosaurs Associated Wikimedia The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject: Commons Free media repository Wikibooks Free textbooks and manuals Wikidata Free knowledge base Wikinews Free-content news Wikiquote Collection of quotations Wikisource Free-content library Wikiversity Free learning tools Wiktionary Dictionary and thesaurus Africa Prehistory Category:Portals with titles not starting with a proper noun Africa