Overview

The study of primate locomotion is a unique discipline that by its nature is interdis- ciplinary, drawing on and integrating research from ethology, ecology, comparative anat- omy, physiology, biomechanics, paleontology, etc. When combined and focused on particular problems this diversity of approaches permits unparalleled insight into critical aspects of our evolutionary past and into a major component of the behavioral repertoire of all animals. Unfortunately, because of the structure of academia, integration of these different approaches is a rare phenomenon. For instance, papers on primate behavior tend to be published in separate specialist journals and read by subgroups of anthropologists and zoologists, thus precluding critical syntheses. In the spring of 1995 we overcame this compartmentalization by organizing a con- ference that brought together experts with many different perspectives on primate locomo- tion to address the current state of the field and to consider where we go from here. The conference, Primate Locomotion-1995, took place thirty years after the pioneering confer- ence on the same topic that was convened by the late Warren G. Kinzey at Davis in 1965.