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 life history and semicircular canals are tuned to a species' rapidity of locomotion. Walker is now developing nondestructive methods for examining tooth enamel and measuring fossil labyrinths so that rare hominoid and hominid specimens can be used. He is a research associate of the National Museum of Kenya and has had many collaborative field programs with the Museum, the latest being at Allia Bay, east Lake Turkana.

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).