Many anthropologists have suggested that carnivores played an important role in human evolution, as predators, competitors, and carcass providers. However, the details of these relationships remain fuzzy, largely because of a dearth of quantitative work on the ecological adaptations of the extinct carnivores. This research in the functional morphology and guild structure of large bodied carnivores will greatly improve the quality of our inferences concerning hominid-carnivore interactions in the African Plio-Pleistocene. The graduate student will test hypotheses concerning critical behaviors of the predators, such as their ability to cache prey in trees, kill large prey, and scavenge from kills. It is significant to hominid evolutionary studies because it will fill in significant information on the paleoecology of our ancestors.
