New Miocene locality in Turkey with evidence on the origin of Ramapithecus and Sivapithecus

Collections in early Middle Miocene deposits at Pasalar in Turkey have yielded a very rich fauna. Included in this are two hominoid species referred here to Sivapithecus darwini (Abel) 1902 and Ramapithecus wickeri (Leakey) 1962. These are both more primitive morphologically and earlier in time than other species of these genera, and they provide evdence that Sivapithecus and Ramapithecus are closely related and that their early diversification may have occurred not in Africa but in Eurasia.