This volume brings together a series of papers that address the topic of
reconstructing behavior in the primate fossil record. The literature
devoted to reconstructing behavior in extinct species is ovelWhelming
and very diverse. Sometimes, it seems as though behavioral
reconstruction is done as an afterthought in the discussion section of
papers, relegated to the status of informed speculation. But recent
years have seen an explosion in studies of adaptation, functional
anatomy, comparative sociobiology, and development. Powerful new
comparative methods are now available on the internet. At the same time,
we face a rapidly growing fossil record that offers more and more
information on the morphology and paleoenvironments of extinct species.
Consequently, inferences of behavior in extinct species have become
better grounded in comparative studies of living species and are
becoming increas- ingly rigorous. We offer here a series of papers that
review broad issues related to reconstructing various aspects of
behavior from very different types of evi- dence. We hope that in so
doing, the reader will gain a perspective on the various types of
evidence that can be brought to bear on reconstructing behavior, the
strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, and, perhaps, new
approaches to the topic. We define behavior as broadly as we can-
including life-history traits, locomotion, diet, and social behavior,
giving the authors considerable freedom in choosing what, exactly, they
wish to explore.
