Hominid palaeobiology: have studies of comparative development come of age?

It is 70 years since Adolf Schultz urged his colleagues to consider how studies of primate growth and development could help them interpret the course of human evolution. This paper considers the evolutionary context of comparative growth studies. It compares and contrasts aspects of the ontogeny of living modern humans and chimpanzees, and considers whether relatively simple models of heterochronic change can account for the modifications which have taken place during the course of human evolutionary history.