ABSTRACT
The family Hominidae includes ourselves, our extinct ancestors and their extinct relatives. Hominids are also characterized dentally by a particular type of occlusal pattern in the cheek teeth, vertically implanted incisors and small non-projecting canines morphologically resembling the incisors. The basic differences between dentitions of men and apes are in canine size and in the fact that both male and female hominids have small canines. The cheek teeth of Ramapithecus resemble those of later hominids, being steep-sided and low-cusped, and the premolars are small. In short, most of the features of hominid dentitions are found in Ramapithecus, and there are enough similarities between Ramapithecus and Pleistocene hominids to justify the view that they are part of one lineage or of closely related lineages. The chapter suggests that the division between Hominidae and Pongidae should be drawn somewhere along the lineage leading to the Pleistocene Hominidae, after at least one of the two major adaptive "boundaries" has been crossed.
