Ramapithecus is an extinct primate erected from a two inch piece of a jawbone, with four teeth. The jawbone was found in the Siwalik Hills of northern India by G.E. Lewis in the 1930's and is similar to the jawbones of baboons. At the time it was said to be 14 million years old, and an human ancestor.
Around the same time Richard Leakey found a lower jawbone, which he named Bramapithecus. When this was compared with the jawbone of Ramapithecus and they were found to fit, Elwyn Simons had the idea that they could be from the same creature.
This combined set was compared with the orangutan and with the jawbone of man. The scientific community was pleased with this discovery until 1981, at which time the set was compared to the jawbone of a baboon. At this time it became hard to reconcile the facts with the previous theory that this creature was a part of man's lineage. Current thinking places Ramapithecus as a species of Sivapithecus, an ancestor of the orangutan.
The Science Digest April 1981 was quoted to say:
- "A reinterpretation of this jaw now suggests that Ramapithecus was an ancestor of neither modern humans or modern apes. Instead Pilbeam himself thinks it represents a third lineage that has no living descendants"
