Anthropocentrism as a source of sampling bias in the fossil record.

The fossil record is the most important tool in palaeosciences, so continually reviewing and attempting to reduce biases in its collection is necessary to curate the best possible record of past life on Earth. Biases in the fossil record are introduced through both biological processes and data collection. Here we have investigated the extent to which anthropocentric data collection has contributed to sampling bias in the assembly of the current fossil record. We have found that the current fossil record (represented in this study by the NOW database) is anthropocentrically biased, both temporally and spatially. Specifically, fossil locality density is higher in time periods when hominins are found, and in known hominin-bearing locations. This demonstrates the need to stop essentializing the narrative of human evolution in paleoscience to reduce bias in sampling of fossil localities.