Prepare notes for a comprehensive 15 marker on Ramapithecus, Sivapithecus and Narmada Man; For all answers, you should quote the archaeologist name, the site and the year of discovery and its significance; Draw a phylogenetic to illustrate where that particular fossil fits in the whole chain; 1.3 – Ethno-archaeology in India Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand 1869–1948 (October 16, 2020). We use cookies to help provide and enhance our service and tailor content and ads. Retrieved October 16, 2020 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/ramapithecus. A Dictionary of Zoology. Sivapithecus (Shiva's Ape) (syn: Ramapithecus) is a genus of extinct apes. 7 Fabulous Farmstays in India That Allow You to Learn Organic Farming While Vacationing! A Dictionary of Earth Sciences. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). No significance was attached to those fossils until 1960, when American anthropologist Elwyn Simons of Yale University began studying them and fit the jaw fragments together. Encyclopedia.com. S. indicus. Ramapithecus, fossil primate dating from the Middle and Late Miocene epochs (about 16.6 million to 5.3 million years ago). The specimen bore many similarities to the orangutan skull and strengthened the theory (previously suggested by others) that Sivapithecus was closely related to orangutans. Ramapithecus, a geographically closely located primate earlier considered of hominidae affinity, is now far out of human lineage. ." He soon repudiated his belief in Ramapithecus as a human ancestor, and the theory was largely abandoned by the early 1980s. Today, most paleontologists believe that the fossils attributed to Ramapithecus actually represent the slightly smaller females of genus Sivapithecus (sexual differentiation not being an uncommon feature of ancestral apes and hominids), and that neither genus was a direct Homo sapiens ancestor. To cite this article: A. Sonakia, H. de Lumley, C. R. Palevol 5 (2006). Indian Prehistory, Indus Civilisation, Contribution of Tribal Cultures, etc. anthropological evidences from India with special reference to Siwaliks and Narmada basin (Ramapithecus, Sivapithecus and Narmada Man). In 1982, David Pilbeam published a description of a significant fossil find, formed by a large part of the face and jaw of a Sivapithecus. This unique discovery, throws new light on the evolution of Man in India. On the basis of his observations of the shape of the jaw and of the morphology of the teeth—which he thought were transitional between those of apes and humans—Simons advanced the theory that Ramapithecus represented the first step in the evolutionary divergence of humans from the common hominoid stock that produced modern apes and humans. There are three named species of Sivapithecus, each dating to slightly different time frames. Far to the east, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, a volcano called Toba had unleashed one of the greatest eruptions ever known, flinging tonnes of volcanic rock into the atmosphere and spreading a pall of ash across southern Asia. There is also the forgotten Miocene-era fossil of a huge ground-dwelling ape (called Gigantopithecus bilaspurensis) that lived about 6 to 9 million years ago in northern India! Scientists found that the stone tools discovered in the Jurreru Valley were very similar to ones that were produced by modern humans in Africa at the same time. You might be wondering, how did a hominid like Sivapithecus (or Ramapithecus) wind up in Asia, of all places, given that the human branch of the mammalian evolutionary tree originated in Africa? Encyclopedia.com. Fossil remains of animals now assigned to this genus, dated from 12.2 million years old[1] in the Miocene, have been found since the 19th century in the Siwalik Hills of the Indian subcontinent as well as in Kutch. If you read us, like us and want this positive news movement to grow, then do consider supporting us via the following buttons: Readers only offer: Get additional Rs 200 off on 'The Better Home' powerful natural cleaners. Well, these two facts are not inconsistent: it could be that the last common ancestor of Sivapithecus and Homo sapiens did in fact live in Africa, and its descendants migrated out of the continent during the middle Cenozoic Era.