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A research cooperation between Elwyn L. Simons, Prithijit S. Chatrath, Duke University, and Dr. Ashok Sahni
and his students, including Rajeev Patnaik, Chandigarh University, was proposed with the objective of reaching a
better understanding of the Tertiary biotic assemblages of India. The discovery in the Indian Eocene of some
of the earliest whales, and recovery of a wide range of rodents and other mammals from many dated sites has
led to the need for a closer analysis of the relationship between Tertiary fossils in the African and Indian
subregions. We located better skeletal parts of the rodents, artiodactyls, prosimians, apes and monkeys that
are already known to scientists from finds of jaws and teeth, and we found better primate skull and skeletal
parts than any recovered so far.
Recent advances in understanding the evolution of Asian faunas described from the Potwar Plateau of Pakistan
call for additions to and a reevaluation of the biotic assemblages of the Simla Hills region and perhaps other
sites in Himachal Pradesh in relation to those of Pakistan. This will lead to an expansion of knowledge about
lineages that may be discovered in northern Indian deposits laid down during the last five to ten million years.
Our combined team of researchers searched for new sites and reopened old sites throughout wide areas where
deposits of this age are exposed in northern India.
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