Aspects of this topic are discussed in the following places at Britannica.
In a phylogenetic model that emphasizes African Miocene species, Samburupithecus is ancestral to Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Orrorin, and Orrorin begets Australopithecus afarensis, which is ancestral to Homo.
...line would be found at contemporary sites farther west, and this turns out probably to be the case with the discoveries of two additional genera: the poorly known eight-million-year-old Samburupithecus, from northern Kenya, and the increasingly complete craniodental discoveries of Graecopithecus, from several sites of about the same age in Greece.
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.