This primate paleontological research project spans three field seasons of excavation in the Fayum Basin of Egypt, with subsequent study and analysis of recovered fossils carried out at Duke University and cooperating research laboratories. The objective of the project is to learn more about the earliest forerunners of monkeys, apes, and humans. Previous discoveries have made this one of the world's most important locations for research in primate origins and evolution. The current project will yield skulls, jaws and post-cranial skeletal elements from a broad range of early primates of both Eocene and Oligocene age represented in the Fayum. These date to between about 36 and 26 million years ago. Primate fossils, to be excavated from nearly a dozen quarries in the Fayum, are seldom found as associated skeletal parts. As a consequence, sustained research and excavation over long time periods is required to augment our knowledge of the more than two dozen extinct primate species known from the region by the systematic accumulation of additional, frequently unknown, limb bones and cranial elements. Most of the described species are known only from jaws and teeth, so much remains to be discovered. Africa appears to be the continent where higher primates arose, and the Fayum holds the only continuous sequence of deposits in Africa during the time period of interest.
