4. Fossil hominins

Abstract

Palaeoanthropologists use many methods to work out the significance of newly discovered fossil evidence, but the first task is to assign hominin fossils to a taxon. After that researchers work out that taxon’s relationships with other fossil and living taxa, and then they infer the behaviours and habitat preferences of the taxon. ‘Fossil hominins: analysis and interpretation’ explains the workings of classification and taxonomy. It describes how whole fossils can be reconstructed from fragments; the difficulties of determining the sex and developmental age of hominin fossil remains; the different interpretations of speciation; how cladistics analysis works; and the gaps and biases in the hominin fossil record.