Frederick E. Grine is an American paleoanthropologist. He is a Professor of anthropology and anatomical sciences at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
He received his bachelors's degree from Washington & Jefferson College, and his Ph.D at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa in 1984.
His research focuses on the hominin fossil record, during the Pliocene and early Pleistocene and the reconstruction of phylogenetic relationships through dental morphology. His most important work has been the analysis of dental microwear in order to reconstruct early hominin dietary habits.
Dr. Grine is a major proponent in the argument that species of robust australopithecine should be given their own genus name, Paranthropus.[1] He also argues that the genus Australopithecus is paraphyletic which would require a new taxonomic designation for specimens included under Australopithecus afarensis to Praeanthropus africanus.[2]
He is the editor of Evolutionary History of the Robust Australopithecines (Transaction Publishers, ISBN 0202361373) and co-editor of Primate Phylogeny (Academic Press, ISBN 0123039606). He is also author of the widely used anatomical textbook Regional Human Anatomy: a Laboratory Workbook for Use With Models And Prosections (McGraw-Hill College, ISBN 0072438886). In addition to this, Dr. Grine has published well over 100 scientific research articles.
He is also known for his work in leading the team that dated the Hofmeyr Skull, discovered in 1952 near the town of Hofmeyr, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, to 36,000 years before present.[3] This skull probably represents the population ancestral to most modern living humans,.[4][5]