| 1987, West Turkana, Kenya |
Dr. David Pilbeam is a Paleoanthropologist who received his Ph.D. at Yale University. In 2002 he was awarded a Docteur Honoris Causa from the Universite' de Poitiers. Pilbeam is currently Professor of Social Sciences at Harvard University and Curator of Paleontology at the Peabody Museum.
He has been prominent in researching the systematics of the Hominoidea, the Asian Neogene, the Miocene Ape fossil record, and is also co-discoverer of the Powtar Plateau, in Pakistan. Here, he discovered a complete skull of Sivapithecus Indicus: a Late Miocene, extinct Great Ape, the one thought to be the late ancestor of the modern day Orangutan.
Pilbeam's focus's are on fossil morphology, analysis of postcranial (developmental) morphology, new hominids, and mammalian paleoecology.
On one project under the direction of Dr. David Pilbeam, Anthropologists from Harvard University and the National Museum of Kenya reported the bone fragment to be a lower jaw with two molars. It was two inches long and an inch deep. The fossil was similar to those associated with "Lucy" and others of the species Australopithecus Afarensis which date back to three and four million years ago. In reference to the find, Dr. Pilbeam stated that "provisional correlation of volcanic rocks at the site with others in the region suggest the find is about five million years (old)." The other rocks have been dated by University of California scientists using the potassium argon technique.
Pilbeam's other achievements include: publishing anthropological literature, Foreign Associate of the National Science Academy, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Pilbeam is still active at work today, his projects are part of an on-going research program in Kenya and Pakistan, investigating the origin and evolution of humans. The program is paid for by the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Foreign Currency Program, and the Louise Brown Foundation. Of his research he quotes: "Very little is known about human evolution in the period 14 to 4 million years ago, during which time the human line split from its more ape-like ancestors and relatives. From before this period, a variety of ape-like forms have been discovered mostly from Kenyan sites. More recently than four million years, our ancestry is much better documented by many hominid specimens from localities in eastern and southern Africa."
Image Courtesy of David Pilbeam, 1987
Quotes obtained from: Earth Science. Fall 1984, Vol. 37, Page 10
Preus, Cory. " Popular Science:, "Oldest Hominid?" Aug 1984, Vol. 225 Page 14.
Pilbeam. Biography from Harvard, 2006
Written By: Holly Schwichtenberg, (March, 2006)