David R. Pilbeam

About

Professor David Pilbeam is headed the Paleoanthropology Laboratory at Harvard University, which is part of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. His work focuses on the evolution of hominoids, including hominins, as well as other mammals. The laboratory conducts a broad range of activities, including field and laboratory research on fossil and recent faunas from regions such as Pakistan, China, and Georgia. Professor Pilbeam's research involves interdisciplinary approaches to questions covering phylogenetics, systematics, behavioral reconstruction, broad patterns of faunal change and evolution, and paleoecology. He has contributed to the publication of a volume on Miocene age Siwalik faunas from the Potwar Plateau, Pakistan, and collaborates with research programs focused on fossil sequences from East Africa and Spain, as well as with other universities and institutions.

Research topics

• Geology
• History
• Paleontology
• Art history
• Environmental ethics
• Genetics
• Genealogy
• Anatomy
• Philosophy
• Geography

Selected publications

• Tertiary Pongidae of East Africa: Evolutionary Relationships and Taxonomy

  2019-02-04 · 108 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• A partial hominoid innominate from the Miocene of Pakistan: Description and preliminary analyses

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2014-12-08 · 66 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We describe a partial innominate, YGSP 41216, from a 12.3 Ma locality in the Siwalik Group of the Potwar Plateau in Pakistan, assigned to the Middle Miocene ape species Sivapithecus indicus. We investigate the implications of its morphology for reconstructing positional behavior of this ape. Postcranial anatomy of extant catarrhines falls into two distinct groups, particularly for torso shape. To an extent this reflects different although variable and overlapping positional repertoires: pronogra…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Neogene Siwaliks of the Potwar Plateau, Pakistan

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2013-05-14 · 62 citations

  book-chapter

  Abstract This chapter characterizes the Neogene Siwaliks of the Potwar Plateau in northern Pakistan. The Siwalik formations of the Indian Subcontinent comprise fluvial sediments of Miocene through Pleistocene age deposited in a series of basins along the southern margin of the collision zone between peninsular India and Asia. The deposits are thick and fossiliferous, with a diverse fauna of terrestrial and freshwater vertebrates. Research on Siwalik fossils and sediments has addressed diverse su…

  PublisherDOI

• The Siwaliks and Neogene Evolutionary Biology in South Asia

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2013-05-14 · 47 citations

  book-chapter

  This chapter characterizes the Siwaliks and Neogene evolutionary biology in South Asia, paying special attention to the distribution of fossiliferous terrestrial deposits of late Cenozoic age across the Indian Subcontinent and the development of a chronostratigraphic framework in Pakistan and India. The Siwalik Group is a thick and laterally expansive wedge of sub-Himalayan nonmarine clastic deposits best developed in the northern Indian Subcontinent, extending southeastward through Nepal and in…

  PublisherDOI

• Siwalik synopsis: A long stratigraphic sequence for the Later Cenozoic of South Asia

  Comptes Rendus Palevol · 2016-01-22 · 44 citations

  articleOpen access

  Les sédiments tertiaires du Pakistan septentrional constituent un registre exceptionnel de la sédimentation continentale et représentent la plus grande partie du Néogène. Le groupe Siwalik du plateau du Potwar, en particulier, comporte de multiples niveaux fossilifères entre environ 18 et 6 Ma. Un contrôle magnétostratigraphique approfondi étaie la datation, si bien que les horizons fossilifères Siwalik peuvent être interpolés dans une échelle de temps à la résolution de 100 000 ans. Nous décriv…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Climatic and Biotic Transformations of Neogene Mammalian Faunas of Pakistan

  NSF · $120k · 2010–2014

Frequent coauthors

• John C. Barry

  63 shared

• Michèle E. Morgan

  Harvard University

  52 shared

• Franck Guy

  47 shared

• Michel Brunet

  French School at Athens

  42 shared

• Lawrence J. Flynn

  Harvard University

  36 shared

• Patrick Vignaud

  Université de Poitiers

  34 shared

• Laura MacLatchy

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  28 shared

• Catherine Badgley

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  28 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Anthropology

  University of California, Berkeley

  1970

• M.A., Anthropology

  University of California, Berkeley

  1966

• B.A., Anthropology

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1964

Similar researchers at Harvard University

• David Reichh-187
• Richard W. Wranghamh-127
• Joseph Henrichh-101