First record of the Miocene hominoid Sivapithecus from Kutch, Gujarat state, western India.

Ansuya Bhandari,Blythe A. Williams,Richard F. Kay,Tobin Hieronymus,Brahma Nand Tiwari,Sunil Bajpai,Cyril Charles

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0206314

Abstract

Hominoid remains from Miocene deposits in India and Pakistan have played a pivotal role in understanding the evolution of great apes and humans since they were first described in the 19th Century. We describe here a hominoid maxillary fragment preserving the canine and cheek teeth collected in 2011 from the Kutch (= Kachchh) basin in the Kutch district, Gujarat state, western India. A basal Late Miocene age is proposed based on the associated faunal assemblage that includes Hipparion and other age-diagnostic mammalian taxa. Miocene Hominoidea are known previously from several areas of the Siwalik Group in the outer western Himalayas of India, Pakistan, and Nepal. This is the first record of a hominoid from the Neogene of the Kutch Basin and represents a significant southern range extension of Miocene hominoids in the Indian peninsula. The specimen is assigned to the Genus Sivapithecus, species unspecified.

Highlights

Recent fieldwork in the Kutch (= Kachchh) district in the state of Gujarat, western India has expanded our knowledge of the Miocene mammalian faunas of the region [1, 2]
Hominoid remains from Miocene deposits in the Siwaliks of India and Pakistan have played a pivotal role in understanding the evolution of great apes and humans since the description of “Paleopithecus” = Sivapithecus sivalensis from the Potwar Plateau of Pakistan [4]
In a Supporting information (S1 Table), we provide the dimensions of the cheek teeth of a sample of extant great ape species Pan and Pongo

Summary

Introduction

Recent fieldwork in the Kutch (= Kachchh) district in the state of Gujarat, western India has expanded our knowledge of the Miocene mammalian faunas of the region [1, 2]. Sivapithecus and other Miocene hominoid taxa are best known from the Siwalik group of India and Pakistan approximately 10 degrees of latitude and more than 1000 kilometers to the north of Kutch. Prior to these collecting efforts of A. Many hominoid taxa (including “Ramapithecus”, a taxon that was considered a possible human ancestor but is thought to represent small specimens of Sivapithecus [5]), were named by researchers collecting in the Siwaliks. The presence of Sanitherium schlagintweiti provides an upper bound for time-averaging at Tapar, as the last occurrence of this taxon in Chinji deposits is placed at ~14 Ma [34]

Materials and methods

Findings

Summary and conclusions