Abstract

New specimens of hominoid primates from the Middle Miocene site at Pa alar, Turkey are described. The material comprises three maxillary specimens, two mandibles, 603 isolated permanent teeth, 42 deciduous teeth and 11 posteranial elements, which have been recovered during our excavations from 1983 to 15 August 1989. There are in addition 86 isolated teeth, which have been described previously, from earlier collections that are included here in the calculation of sample statistics. The hominoid specimens from Pa alar form a relatively homogeneous sample from the point of view of morphology but display a high level of metrical variability. The variation is evaluated in relation to that of modern and sub-fossil orang-utans and it is compared to the variability in other Miocene samples from Lufeng and the Siwaliks. A case can be made for either a one species interpretation of the Pa alar hominoids or, as we favor, a two species interpretation. Two morphs can be identified related to very high degrees of size variation: one morph is seen in about 90% of that which can be so differentiated, and these bominoids are most similar to specimens from Çandir and Neudorf an der March in Europe and Kenyapithecus africanus from Kenya. They are provisionally referred to ef. Sivapithecus darwini. The second morph can be distinguished on the incisors, premolars and lower molars, and this is attributed to an indeterminate species of ef. Sivapithecus.

Author Keywords: Miocene; Turkey; Hominoidea; Pa alar; Sivapithecus; species definition

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