Over the last two decades, Elwyn Simons' excavations at the Fayum Depression in Egypt have provided the major discoveries and documentation of early monkey evolution. It is a remarkable site, and Dr. Simons has been extremely diligent and industrious. The period for which this site has almost come to be synonymous with is the Oligocene, roughly 30 million years ago, near the time when the first monkeys began to appear. Recently, Simons and his colleagues have found a new locality at the Fayum which dates from an earlier period, the Eocene, extending back the time depth of fossil monkeys to the time of their origination. They have just begun to investigate this deposit, known as Locality 41. Already, the finds have demonstrated the following: 1. a surprisingly high number of different monkeys (anthropoids) and a `bushiness` of early monkey evolution - lots of experimentation. 2. broad adaptive diversity of early monkeys. 3. the structurally primitive qualityof these animals. This new award for three years will undoubtedly lead to a whole host of new fossil primate and other vertebrate finds. All the Eocene primates collected thusfar at L-41 represent new taa and many are more complete than those found elsewhere. This is a very exciting excavation with extremely good prospects for new discoveries.
