Department of Anthropology

Penn State University

Alan Walker

Evan Pugh Professor of Biological Anthropology and Biology

Office: 315 Carpenter Building
Telephone: (814) 865-3122 Fax: (814) 863-1474
Email: axw8@psu.edu
Curriculum Vitae
 

EDUCATION:

  • B.A., Cambridge University, 1962
  • Ph.D., University of London, 1967

AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION:

Dr. Walker is a paleoanthropologist who works on primate and human evolution, concentrating mainly on the Neogene record from East Africa.

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS:

Dr. Walker endeavors to extract ancient behaviors from the fossil and taphonomic record. Teeth record information about an individual's diet and life history and semicircular canals are tuned to a species' rapidity of locomotion. Walker is collaborating with colleagues in other universities to quantify tooth wear in evaluating possible diets of extinct primates and has just finished a long term program with Dr. Tim Ryan of the Department and other colleagues of using high resolution CT scanning to quantify the semicircular canals of living and fossil primates.  He is also collaborating with Dr. Ryan on a study of the scaling phenomena in trabecular bone in primates, with a view to using the results to inform us about the use of the limbs in extinct forms. 

FIELDWORK:

Studies of living Madagascan lemurs, living East African primates; Excavations in England (Jurassic, Eocene, and Pleistocene); Excavations in Madagascar (Holocene); Excavations in Uganda (Miocene) and Kenya (Miocene and Plio/Pleistocene); Visits to many other sites, including all important ones in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa.

COURSES TAUGHT:

  • ANTH 401 Human Evolution: Material Evidence

RECENT PUBLICATIONS:

  • Phillipps, E.M. and Walker, A. (2000) A new species of lorisid from the Miocene of Kenya.  Primates 4: 365-370.
  • Brown, B., Brown, F.H., and Walker, A. (2001) New hominids from the Lake Turkana Basin, Kenya. J. Human Evol. 39: 1-17.
  • Vasey, N., and Walker, A. (2001) Neonate body size and hominid carnivory.  In: Meat-eating and Human Evolution, Stanford C, Bunn H (eds.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp.332-349.
  • Liu W., Zheng, L. and Walker, A. (2001) Three-dimensional morphometric analyses of hominoid lower molars from Yuanmou of Yunnan Province, China. Acta Anthropologica Sinica 20: 163-177.
  • Stauffer, R., Walker, A., Ryder, O., Lyons-Weiler, M., & Hedges, S.B. (2001) Human and ape molecular clocks and constraints on paleontological hypotheses.  J. Heredity  92:469-474.
  • Ward, C.V., Leakey, M.G., and Walker, A. (2001) The earliest known Australopithecus, A. anamensis. J. Human Evol. 41: 255-368.
  • Dean, C., Leakey, M.G., Reid, D., Schrenk, F., Schwartz, G.T., Stringer, C., and Walker, A. (2001) Growth processes in teeth distinguish modern humans from Homo erectus and earlier hominins.  Nature  414:628-631.
  • Dunsworth, H. and Walker, A. (2002) Early genus Homo.  In: The Primate Fossil Record,  Hartwig, W. (ed.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 419-436.
  • Phillips, E.M., and Walker, A. (2002).  Lorisidae. In: The Primate Fossil Record,  Hartwig, W. (ed.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 83-96.
  • Arroya-Cabrales, J., Gregorin, R., Schlitter, DA., and  Walker, A.  (2002) A new molossid bat from the Miocene of Kenya.  J. Vert. Pal. 22:380-387.
  • Walker, A. (2002) Looking for lemurs on the great red island.  In  Backcountry Pilot: flying adventures with Ike Russell (T. Bowen, ed.) University of Arizona Press,  Tucson, pp. 99-104.
  • Dunsworth, H. and Walker, A. (2002) Hominid Evolution: early Homo.  In Encylopedia of Evolution (M. Pagel, ed.) Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp.484-489.
  • Walker, A. (2002) New perspectives on the hominids of the Turkana Basin, Kenya.  Evol. Anthrop. 11:38-41.
  • Leakey, M.G., and Walker, A. (2003). The Lothagam hominids.  In: Lothagam: the dawn of humanity in Eastern Africa.  Harris, J. and Leakey, M.  (eds.).  Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 249-256.
  • Leakey, M., and Walker, A. (2003) Early hominid fossils from Africa.  Scientific American, 13 (2): 14-19.  [Updated version of 1998 paper].
  • Dunsworth, H., Challis, J. and Walker, A. (2003) The evolution of throwing: a new look at an old idea. Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg 243:105-110.
  • Ungar, P.S., Brown, C.A., Bergstrom, T.S., and Walker, A. (2003) Quantification of dental microwear by tandem scanning confocal microscopy and scale-sensitive fractal analysis.  Scanning 25:185-193.
  • Walker, A. Silcox , M.T., Bloch, J.I., Spoor, F., and Krovitz, G. (2003) The semicircular canals of plesiadapiform primates and their functional significance.  J. Vert. Pal. 23 (Suppl) 107A.
  • Nakatsukasa, M., Ward, C.V., Walker, A., Teaford, M.F., and Ogihara, N. (2004) Tail loss in Proconsul heseloni.  Journal of Human Evolution 46:777-784.
  • A. Walker, G.E. Krovitz, M.T. Silcox, E.L. Simons, F. Spoor.  (2004) The semicircular canals of subfossil lemurs and their functional significance.  Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 123 (Suppl.):  202.
  • Scott, R.S.,  Ungar, P.S., Bergstrom, T.S.,  Brown, C.A., Grine, F.E., Teaford, M.F., and Walker, A.  (2005) Dental microwear texture analysis reflects diets of living primates and fossil hominins.  Nature 436:693-695.
  • Seiffert, E.R., and Walker,.A. (2005) Lorisoid evolution in Africa – the fossil evidence. Am. J. Phys.Anthrop., Suppl;., 40: 185.
  • Walker, A., and Shipman, P., (2005) The Ape in the Tree.  Belknap Press, Cambridge, 288 pp.
  • Kumar, S., Filipski, A., Swarma, V., Walker, A, and Hedges, S.B., (2005) Placing confidence limits on the molecular age of the human-chimpanzee divergence. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 105: 18842-18847.
  • Sherwood, R.J., Hlusko, L.J., Duren, D.L., Emch, V.C., and Walker, A. (2006) The mandibular symphysis of large-bodied hominoids.  Hum. Biol. 77: 735-759.
  • Walker, A.  (2006) Foreword.  Ethnohistory 53: 1-2.
  • Walker, A. (2006) Early Hominin diets: overview and historical perspectives.  In Early hominin diets: The known, the unknown, and the Unknowable, Ungar, P.S., (ed) Oxford University Press, pp. 3-10.
  • Scott, R.S.,  Ungar, P.S.,  Bergstrom, T.S., Brown, C.A., Childs, B., Teaford, M.,F. &  Walker.A. (2006) Dental microwear texture analysis: technical considerations. J. Hum. Evol. 51:339-349.
  • Walker, A. (2006)  Taphonomy and Site Formation of two Early Miocene sites on Rusinga Island, Kenya.  In African Taphonomy,  Pickering, T., Shick, K., and Toth, N (eds) Indiana University Press (in press).