Scholars@Duke
construction release_alert
Profile editing will be unavailable for Scholars@Duke profiles from June 11-24, 2026 as manual profile data entry transitions to Elements. More information about the transition.
cancel
Blythe A. Williams

Blythe A. Williams

Associate Professor of the Practice Emerita of Evolutionary Anthropology
Evolutionary Anthropology
blythe@duke.edu
Duke Box 90383, Durham, NC 27708-0383
0013 Bio Sci Bldg, Durham, NC 27708

Selected Publications

New Early Miocene hystricognath rodents (Caviomorpha) from the Madre de Dios River in the southeastern Peruvian Amazon

Journal Article Papers in Palaeontology · March 1, 2026 South American hystricognath rodents (Caviomorpha) are a dynamic and important group of mammals with a rich fossil record that spans nearly every continental ecosystem. The oldest records come from the Palaeogene of the Peruvian Amazonia. They are well-doc ... Full text Cite

Fruit Selectivity in Anthropoid Primates: Size Matters

Journal Article International Journal of Primatology · June 1, 2020 Featured Publication Certain features of both extant and fossil anthropoid primates have been interpreted as adaptations to ripe fruit foraging and feeding particularly spatulate incisors and trichromatic color vision. Here, we approach the question of anthropoid fruit foragin ... Full text Open Access Cite

Correction: First record of the Miocene hominoid Sivapithecus from Kutch, Gujarat state, western India.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2019 [This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206314.]. ... Full text Cite

Dental Topography and Food Processing in Wild-Caught Costa Rican Alouatta

Conference AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY · April 1, 2018 Link to item Cite

First record of the Miocene hominoid Sivapithecus from Kutch, Gujarat state, western India.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2018 Hominoid remains from Miocene deposits in India and Pakistan have played a pivotal role in understanding the evolution of great apes and humans since they were first described in the 19th Century. We describe here a hominoid maxillary fragment preserving t ... Full text Open Access Cite

Are there any African Platyrrhines?

Conference AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY · April 1, 2017 Link to item Cite

Environmental Variables Affecting Primate Species Richness in the Neotropics

Conference AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY · March 1, 2015 Link to item Cite

Additional Vertebrate Remains from the Early Miocene of Kutch, Gujarat

Journal Article Special Publication of the Paleontological Society of India · 2014 Open Access Cite

Fossil papio cranium from !Ncumtsa (Koanaka) Hills, western Ngamiland, Botswana.

Journal Article American journal of physical anthropology · September 2012 Three fossils, a cranium of Papio, a cercopithecid frontal bone, and a mandible of juvenile Papio, have been recovered from cave deposits in the !Ncumtsa (Koanaka) Hills of western Ngamiland, Botswana. These specimens are significant because well-preserved ... Full text Cite

New adapiform primate of Old World affinities from the Devil's Graveyard Formation of Texas.

Journal Article Journal of human evolution · August 2011 Most adapiform primates from North America are members of an endemic radiation of notharctines. North American notharctines flourished during the Early and early Middle Eocene, with only two genera persisting into the late Middle Eocene. Here we describe a ... Full text Cite

New perspectives on anthropoid origins.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · March 2010 Adaptive shifts associated with human origins are brought to light as we examine the human fossil record and study our own genome and that of our closest ape relatives. However, the more ancient roots of many human characteristics are revealed through the ... Full text Cite

New Perspectives on Anthropoid Origins

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Science · 2010 Adaptive shifts associated with human origins are brought to light as we examine the human fossil record and study our own genome and that of our closest ape relatives. However, the more ancient roots of many human characteristics are revealed through the ... Link to item Cite

Phylogenetic relationships of late Uintan primates from the Devil's Graveyard Formation, Texas.

Journal Article AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY · January 1, 2009 Link to item Cite

New Uintan primates from Texas and their implications for North American patterns of species richness during the Eocene.

Journal Article Journal of human evolution · December 2008 New omomyid fossils from the Purple Bench locality of the Devil's Graveyard Formation, middle Eocene (Uintan) of southwest Texas, are described. One specimen represents a new genus and species, herein named Diablomomys dalquesti. This new species is alloca ... Full text Cite

The oldest Asian record of Anthropoidea.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · August 2008 Undisputed anthropoids appear in the fossil record of Africa and Asia by the middle Eocene, about 45 Ma. Here, we report the discovery of an early Eocene eosimiid anthropoid primate from India, named Anthrasimias, that extends the Asian fossil record of an ... Full text Cite

Comparing levels of homoplasy in the primate skeleton.

Journal Article Journal of human evolution · May 2007 Hard-tissue morphological characters (bones and teeth) are a primary source of information about the evolutionary history of primates. These tissues are commonly found as isolated elements in the fossil record and studied as three separate partitions: the ... Full text Cite

Phylogenetic analysis of anthropoid relationships.

Journal Article Journal of human evolution · September 1998 The relationships of anthropoids to other primates are currently debated, as are the relationships among early fossil anthropoids and crown anthropoids. To resolve these issues, data on 291 morphological characters were collected for 57 taxa of living and ... Full text Cite

Levels of homoplasy in the evolution of the mammalian skeleton

Journal Article Journal of Mammalian Evolution · January 1, 1998 It is commonly believed that there are differences in the evolutionary lability of the crania, dentition, and postcrania of mammals, the latter two being more prone to homoplasy because of strong selective pressures for feeding and locomotion, respectively ... Full text Cite

Cladistic analysis and anthropoid origins - Response

Journal Article SCIENCE · December 19, 1997 Link to item Cite

Cladistic analysis and anthropoid origins.

Journal Article Science (New York, N.Y.) · December 1997 Full text Cite

Anthropoid origins.

Journal Article Science (New York, N.Y.) · February 1997 Recent fossil discoveries have greatly increased our knowledge of the morphology and diversity of early Anthropoidea, the suborder to which humans belong. Phylogenetic analysis of Recent and fossil taxa supports the hypotheses that a haplorhine-strepsirrhi ... Full text Cite

Dental morphology of the early Eocene Hyopsodontid, Haplomylus, from the Powder River Basin, Wyoming

Journal Article University of Wyoming Contributions to Geology · 1997 Cite

Rethinking anthropoid origins

Journal Article Science · 1997 Cite

New early eocene anaptomorphine primate (Omomyidae) from the Washakie Basin, Wyoming, with comments on the phylogeny and paleobiology of anaptomorphines.

Journal Article American journal of physical anthropology · March 1994 Recent paleontological collecting in the Washakie Basin, southcentral Wyoming, has resulted in the recovery of over 100 specimens of omomyid primates from the lower Eocene Wasatch Formation. Much of what is known about anaptomorphine omomyids is based upon ... Full text Cite

The taxon anthropoidea and the crown clade concept

Journal Article Evolutionary Anthropology Issues News and Reviews · January 1, 1994 Full text Cite