Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

2014 Edition
| Editors: Claire Smith

Hominids, Earliest African

Reference work entry
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_644
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Introduction

The term “Hominid” in the traditional sense and the sense in which it was used for decades and is used here, derives from the family name Hominidae which applies to humans and their ancestors as far back as the divergence from the great apes traditionally known as Pongidae or pongids.

Definition

In recent years many, but not all, palaeoanthropologists have abandoned the traditional terminology because they have accepted genetic studies that indicate humans are more closely related to chimpanzees than to orangutans and they therefore argue that it is wrong to group chimps together with orangs in the family Pongidae and that, instead, all the great apes and humans and their ancestors should be classed as hominids. They then separate off the African apes (gorilla and chimp) together with humans and their ancestors in the subfamily Homininae (which has for decades been used only for Homo and Pithecanthropusto distinguish them from the subfamily Australopithecinae). Then they...

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References

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Further Reading

  1. Simons, E.L. 1972.Primate evolution. An introduction to man’s place in nature. London and New York: MacMillan.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Institute for Human EvolutionUniversity of the WitwatersrandJohannesburgSouth Africa