Proceedings of 
the United States 
National Museum 
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION + WASHINGTON, D.C. 
Volume 125 1968 Number 3662 
Prospects in Primate Biology 
J. R. Napier 
Curator, Division of Mammals 
Director of Primate Biology Program 
Preface 
In recent years the great increase in studies in physical anthropology 
as well as the paleontology of the more recent periods of geologic time 
has focused scholarly attention on man’s relative and potential 
ancestors to a new level of intensity. Partially, this has been the result 
of the effect of the evolutionary theories postulated since 1930 by 
Huxley, Dobzhansky, and others. As Mayr (1963, Animal species and 
evolution, p. 637) has stated: 
It was hopeless to try making sense of hominid phylogeny as long as the fossil 
remains of man’s ancestors were considered anatomical ‘‘types.” . . . The study 
of the geographic variation of animals and a new insight into the process of specia- 
tion have introduced into the study of fossil man new concepts [and]—a great 
simplification of the general picture. 
An understanding of man’s rapid mental evolution in the past 
million years, based presumably on the refinements of speech and tool 
making, has led biologists and anthropologists into a major field of 
study—the social organization and behavior of primates. Primate 
biology gives every indication of being one of the most vigorous and 
rewarding areas of research although still in its formative stages. 
One of the charming idiosyncracies of this field of study is that it is 
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