ABSTRACT
In the 1960s and 1970s paleoanthropologists believed the oldest hominin ancestor before Australopithecus was Ramapithecus (14–15 million years ago), a fossil ape whose remains were first found in the Siwalik Hills in India. Later similar partial remains were found in Europe, Africa and other parts of Asia. The main supporters of Ramapithecus were Yale/Harvard scholars Elwyn Simons and David Pilbeam. Then, as today, the main body of paleoanthropologists used essentialist methods of creating idealised species – methods based on a holotype specimen and sometimes a few paratypes: Ramapithecus was ‘constructed’ in this way. Today we know that Ramapithecines were apes, similar to our present-day orangutan.
