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| The order of mammals that has a complex of characteristics related to an initial adaptation to life in the trees |
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| A vertebrate phylum consisting of organisms that possess a notochord at some period during their life |
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| A flexible internal rod that runs along the back of an animal |
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| A subphylum of the phylum Chordata, defined by the presence of an internal, segmented spinal column and bilateral symmetry |
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| Symmetry in which the right and left sides of the body are approximately mirror images |
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| An organ that develops inside a pregnant placental mammal that provides the fetus with oxygen and food and helps filter out harmful substances |
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| The period of life from conception until birth |
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| The period of life from birth until death |
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| An organism capable of maintaining a constant body temperature under most circumstances |
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| All the teeth being the same |
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| Having different types of teeth |
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| The chisel-shaped front teeth, used for cutting, slicing, and gnawing food |
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| The teeth located in the front of the jaw behind the incisors, which are normally used by mammals for puncturing and defense |
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| One of the types of back teeth, used for crushing and grinding food |
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| The teeth farthest back in the jaw, used for crushing and grinding food |
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| A short-hand method of describing the number of each type of tooth in one-half of the jaw in a mammal |
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| The area of the forebrain that consists of the outermost layer of brain cells, associated with memory, learning, and intelligence |
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| A biological structure adapted to a narrow range of conditions and used in very specific ways |
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| A biological structure adapted to a wide range of conditions and used in very general ways |
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| Binocular stereoscopic vision |
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| Overlapping fields of vision, with both sides of the brain receiving images form both eyes, thereby providing depth percpetion |
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| The suborder of primates that are biologically primitive compared to anthropoids |
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| Anthropoidea (anthropoids) |
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| The suborder of primates consisting of monkeys, apes, and humans |
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| A nocturnal prosimian found today in Asia and Africa |
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| A nocturnal prosimian found today in Indonesia |
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| A prosimian found today on the island of Madagascar |
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| Strepsirhini (strepsirhines) |
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| One of two suborders of primates suggested to prelace the prosimian/anthropoid suborders; have a moist nose (lemurs and lorises) |
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| One of two suborders of primates suggested to replace the prosimian/anthropoid suborders; without a moist nose (tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans) |
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| A form of movement in which all four limbs are of equal size and make contact with the ground, and the sprine is roughly parallel to the ground |
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| A superfamily of anthropoids consisting of apes and humans |
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| A raised area on the chewing surface of a tooth |
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| The ability to raise the arms above the head and hang on to branches and to climb in this position |
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| The physical structure of organisms |
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| A family (hominidae) within the hominoids including humans and the great apes (orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, and bonobo), although some scientists still use a more traditional definition that refers only to humans and their humanlike ancestors |
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| Humans and their ancestors since the time of divergence from the common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos |
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| The study of primate and human evolution |
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| A comparative method of dating the older of two or more fossils or sites, rather than providing a specific date |
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| The method of estimating the specific date of fossils or sites |
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| Before Present (1950), the internationally accepted form of designating past dates |
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| A relative dating method based on the fact that older remains are found deeper int he earth because of cumulative buildup of the earth's surface over time |
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| A relative dating method based on the accumlation of fluorine in a bone, that tells if two bones from a site are of the same age |
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| A relative dating method in which sites can be assigned an approximate age based on the similarity of animal remains to those from other dates sites |
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| The average length of time it takes for half of the radioactive substance to decay into another form |
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| A chronometric dating method based on the half-life of carbon-14 that can be applied to organic remains, such as charcoal, dating back over the past 50,000 years |
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| A chronometric dating method based on the half-life of radioactive potassium that can be used to date volcanic rock older than 100,000 years |
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| A variation of potassium-argon dating that can be applied to very small samples of volcanic rock |
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| A chronometric dating method based on the fact that trees in dry climates tend to accumulate one growth ring per year |
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| A chronometic dating method based on the number of tracks made across volcanic rock as uranium decays into lead |
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| A chronometric dating method that uses the fact that certain heated objects accumlate trapped electrons over time, which allows the date when the object was initially heated to be determined |
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| Electron spin resonance (ESR) |
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| A chronometric dating method that estimtes dates from observation of radioactive atoms trapped in the calcite crystals present in a number of materials, such as bones and shells |
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| A method of dating sties based on the fact that the earth's magentic field has shifted back and forth from the north to the south in the past at irregular intervals |
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| Species identified from fossil remains based on their physical similarities and differences relative to other species |
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| The study of what happens to plants and animals after they die |
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| The study of ancient environments |
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| The study of fossil pollen |
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| Analysis of the ratio of stable (nonradioactive) isotopes of elements such as carbon that provides infomration about ancient diet |
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| A field of archaeology that involves the study of the manufacture and use of tools in order to learn how they were made and used by people in the past |
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| A major subdivision of geologic time |
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| A subdivision of a geologic eon |
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| A subdivision of a geologic era |
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| A term that is used informally to refer to earth's history before the Cambrian period of the Paleozoic era. Precambrian time includes the Hadean, Archean, and Proterozoic eons, and lasted from 4,600 million to 542 million years ago |
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| The first geologic eon, dating from 4,600-3,800 MYA, which occurred before the oldest fossil evidence of life |
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| The second geologic eon, dating from 3,800 to 2,500 MYA, characterized by the appearance of the first single-celled organisms |
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| The third geologic eon, dating from 2,500 to 542 MYA, characterized by teh appearnce of the first simple multicelled organisms |
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| The fourth geologic eon, covering the past 542 million years |
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| The first area of the Phanerozoic eon, dating from 542 to 251 MYA, when the first vertebrates appeared |
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| An early group of mammal-like reptiles, ancestors of later mammals |
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| The second geologic era of the Phanerzoic eon, dating from 251 to 65.6 MYA, when the dinosaurs were dominant and when mammals and birds appeared |
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| The third and most recent geologic era of the Phanerozoic eon, dating to the last 65.5 MYA; primate and human evolution occurs during this era |
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