Talk:Chimpanzee–human last common ancestor

Merger Proposal
I think Pan Prior can be included in this article. I'm going to add that as a subsection and merge the links into this. If there's no objection then please I'll nominate the Pan Prior page for deletion afterwards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.13.167.56 (talk) 01:27, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Please delete the Pan Prior page to complete the merger.


 * I've redirected the Pan prior page to this page. No need to delete anything. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 08:35, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

This article is short
For being such an important subject on our possible origin, it's surprisingly short. 184.96.202.120 (talk) 16:37, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

hypothetical
That's a hypothetical ancestor. Or what is the taxonomic name? --41.151.77.35 (talk) 10:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hypothetical, but an important reference point in the evolution of humans. AnonMoos (talk) 13:39, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not "hypothetical", it's "logically necessary", as common ancestors between any related species. But it does not have, and probably will never have, a specific taxonomic name. Usually it's not really possible to pinpoint the actual last common ancestor (or any actual ancestor), but only closely related representatives, as it's nearly never 100% certain, it could always be a side branch or something more complex. It could be some already discovered australopithecine (or some other) taxon, that wouldn't be "renamed" to emphasize the hypothetical phylogenetic position, or it could be some other species/genus, that would be named "whatever". It could even be named in a way that implies such phylogenetic position, but not necessarily so, and it could also eventually be displaced by some other finding that fits better, but would remain with the old/"wrong" name. The closest thing to a taxonomically named hypothetical ancestor is Proavis, but it's just named, it's not an actual taxon. --Extremophile (talk) 21:48, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Absence of chimp fossils
Reportedly several half-a-million year-old chimpanzee fossilized teeth were found in Kenya in 2004 by Sally McBrearty (McBrearty and Jablonski, Nature vol. 437, 2005). They don't reveal much of anything new, but they do seem to exist... AnonMoos (talk) 13:50, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Typo?
One of the pull quotes cites "White et al." as saying
 * In effect, there is now not a priori reason to presume....

This looks like a typo. My guess is that it should be
 * In effect, there is now no a priori reason to presume....

Can anyone check the source and correct the article accordingly? Also, a priori should probably be italicized. --Trovatore (talk) 00:55, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Dawkins cited incorrectly?
I'm not sure this is true:

"However, Richard Dawkins, in his book The Ancestor's Tale, proposes that robust australopithecines such as Paranthropus are the ancestors of gorillas, whereas some of the gracile australopithecines are the ancestors of chimpanzees"

What he actually says in this book is:

(He first proposes 4 theories about bipedality in humans, chimps, Sahelanthropus and Orrorin) (Note: These theories are not NOT about the ancestry of chimps and gorillas)

"There is nothing in principle wrong with Theory 4." "As it happens, this very suggestion has been revived by John Gribbin and Jeremy Cherfas," "They go so far as to suggest that chimpanzees are descended from gracile australopithecines" "and gorillas from robust australopithecines" "For such an in-your-face radical suggestion, they make a surprisingly good case."

Dawkins himself is not making the suggestion/proposition, and saying that somebody makes a good case does not mean you have decided to support this case yourself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by N-double-u (talk • contribs) 13:00, 3 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It simply doesn't matter much even if Dawkins vouched for it, if the book is just a popularization book, not a research paper. Is sort of like saying that Neil Tyson said he accepts anthropogenic global warming in an interview. I do agree/think that that it's not appropriate to cite the author of some popularization book or article as the one(s) defending an hypothesis, one should track the actual researchers/papers, and Dawkins doesn't have research in this area, as far as I know.--Extremophile (talk) 22:00, 30 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I do not favor citing popular authors such as Richard Dawkins or Jared Diamond in these sorts of situations. Science articles should cite actual scientific research, not popular literature, whenever possible, especially as the primary or only source for a scientific claim. -- 209.162.56.112 (talk) 04:20, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that doesn't seem fair to Dawkins. But if someone has Gribbin's paper, it might be an interesting add. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.251.15.7 (talk) 17:28, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * well, I agree, but in spite of your discussion of this in last April, the Dawkins thing was still in the article when I looked at it just now. I have removed it again. --dab (𒁳) 08:13, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Consensus? Common Misconceptions article
This article appears to disagree/clash with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#Biology. I was told to take my concerns about the problem to this talk page instead.

Here, Pan prior is mentioned as a theory held by one scientist, Richard Wrangham. The Common Misconceptions article strongly implies that Pan prior is now THE sole consensus agreed upon by ALL palaeoanthropologists, though it only cites Wrangham's book, Jared Diamond, and maybe one other source (not sure about the third). This looks strange to me. When I majored in anthropology, nobody mentioned this supposed consensus. Homo, Australopithecus, Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, Paranthropus, Kenyanthropus, Pan, and Ardipithecus were still widely considered separate and valid genera. Even combining H. erectus, H. sapiens, and H. neandertalensis into one species was controversial.

Unless hominid taxonomy has been completely shaken up and rewritten from the ground up in the 4 years since I graduated, (and taxonomic naming priority has been suspended?), the Common Misconceptions article really should be edited to say something less misleading. At the very least, if collapsing them all into Pan has become the new widely accepted consensus among palaeoanthropologists (I can ask my former professors), then either Common Misconceptions or this article should cite a lot more sources backing that up. -- 209.162.56.112 (talk) 04:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It's weird to call our common ancestor with the name of one of its branches. It's like calling Latin Italian. The chimpanzee branch has also evolved since the split. --JorisvS (talk) 09:28, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Latest 'data' on timing
In 'Strong male bias drives germline mutation in chimpanzees' Science 13 June 2014: Vol. 344 no. 6189 pp. 1272-1275 DOI: 10.1126/science.344.6189.1272 Oliver Venn, Isaac Turner, Iain Mathieson, Natasja de Groot, Ronald Bontrop, and Gil McVean calculate (using only the overlapping parts of chimp/human dna) a split time of 11-14 million years. (See http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2014/06/11/344.6189.1272.DC1/Venn.SM.pdf Table S11) Dan Watts (talk) 00:04, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

MRCA vs. "divergence"
It appears to me that the two concepts should not be conflated. Clearly, we are looking at a prolonged period of interbreeding (what the article calls "messy speciation"), and a scenario much like the Neanderthal "admixture" in modern humans. On one hand, the MRCA is a well-defined single individual. The time of "divergence" may include the entire time range of ongoing admixture. Thus, the "divergence" between Neanderthals and H. sapiens would be about 300kya, but the MRCA of Neanderhtals and H. sapiens would hypothetically  (if Neanderthals were found to survive on some island) be closer to 30kya. I do assume this is clear to article contributors, but the presentation of estimates in the article still seems to garble these concepts. So estimates of "divergence" in general beginning 13 Mya is, to my mind, perfectly compatible with a MRCA living 7 Mya, assuming that the two populations were geographically separated but still occasionally interbreeding until that time. --dab (𒁳) 08:20, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

MRCA is not even mentioned in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.147.135.3 (talk) 12:24, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Merger with hominini article without consulting other editors
This article has been merged with Hominini. This was done without discussion or putting forward supporting arguments - just a banner for four days on the hominini article proposing the merger. I do not see the logic as this article is not about hominini, the last common ancestor after the split with the ape lineage. The merger should not have been done without giving reasons and time for other editors to give their views. Dudley Miles (talk) 14:53, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I do not see the logic either. This article is, by definition, about the direct ancestor of the Hominini tribe, not the tribe itself. --JorisvS (talk) 20:38, 15 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I STRONGLY AGREE . This urge to merge articles ends with wiki as one vast article.  Mergeing, unless there is a very strong reason to do so devalues wiki substantially.  Articles should only be merged if they concern an identical subject, not if they are capable of being grouped together, and much less if they just have things in common, as in this case.  Anyone know how to undo the merge or initiate that? LookingGlass (talk) 15:30, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Confusingly, Homininae has a cladogram that has Hominini inclusive of Pan. Either it is wrong or the original Hominini article was and what has gotten into this article about it. --JorisvS (talk) 17:23, 18 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I do not think there is an official definition of Hominini. As I understand it, most experts define it to exclude Pan, but a minority adopts a different scheme which includes them. This really needs an (impartial!) expert to sort out.


 * There seems to be a consensus to reverse the merger, but I am not sure how to proceed. Advice please. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:01, 18 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Simple enough: Revert this article to a pre-merger version, such as this one or some older one (preferably while keeping any worthwhile improvements that have been made in the meantime), and revert the other article back to an un-merged state, probably this; finally remove the merge banner. Huon (talk) 20:26, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * We could revert the redirection of Hominini and, instead of simply reverting this article, remove all off-topic coverage of Hominini. --JorisvS (talk) 20:33, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Fine. I have reverted the redirect. Would you have a go at removing the off topic coverage? Dudley Miles (talk) 22:36, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've done it. It took a little more doing than I thought, but this should get it a long way. I think it may still be possible to separate the two topics better, though. --JorisvS (talk) 09:36, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I've reverted to just before the merge in, and made some edits. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:10, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * That really doesn't improve this article. It makes it look far less developed and removes relevant information. I'm going to revert your revert. If you see something off-topic here, remove it, but that does not warrant such a blanket revert. --JorisvS (talk) 17:27, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

well, ok, but why did you leave the taxobox in place? If you read the article (as opposed to just its title), it is in essence about time estimates for the process of hybrid speciation between the lineages of Pan and Homo. It is not about a hypothetical "last common ancestor", which would by definition be a single individual, but whose age is not only impossible but also pointless to recover. So, this means the topic of this article is an estimate of the age of the Hominini tribe. That's just what it is, de-facto, regardless of its title. The Hominini article partly re-hashes the same material, but more superficially. This basically makes the two pages a WP:CFORK. There is no value in keeping two short articles about the same material separate, even if their title suggest closely-related-but-technically-distinct topics. --dab (𒁳) 10:37, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Error in scientific classification info box
The info box here lists chimpanzee as being in the type species Homo sapiens, yet Homo sapiens is part of the genus Homo whereas Chimps are are the genus or a species in the genus Pan. They cannot therefore be part of the same species type as us because genus is of lower rank than species in the classification hierarchy being used. LookingGlass (talk) 16:40, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

There is an RFC that may affect this page
There is an RFC that may affect this page at WikiProject Tree of Life. The topic is Confusion over Taxnomy of subtribe Panina and taxon homininae (Are Chimps Hominins)?

Please feel free to comment there. SPACKlick (talk) 16:38, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Molecular clock paper
This paragraph looks wrong to me but I am reluctant to delete it as I do not have access to the source:
 * This paradigmatic age has stuck with molecular anthropology until the late 1990s. Since the 1990s, the estimate has again been pushed towards more-remote times, because studies have found evidence for a slowing of the molecular clock as apes evolved from a common monkey-like ancestor with monkeys and humans evolved from a common ape-like ancestor with non-human apes.

It is true that 5 million years now looks far too short and 8-10 more likely, but it is a gross exaggeration to say this is "towards more-remote times". Also one orginal paper does not show that the reason for the revision is studies showing a slowing of the molecular clock. The primary reason, as I understand it, is the discovery of fossils on the human line of the divide which are older than 5 million years. Can someone who has access to the paper look at this. Dudley Miles (talk) 07:41, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merger: CHLCA into Hominini (20Dec2015)
I second the motion made by Dbachmann; I tend to favor the idea for the reasons he said---but am open to questions & answers and to change my mind. I agree that both articles speak to the same concern: the age of/to the beginnings of the tribe Hominini---such that the substance of the article CHLCA is a subset of the substance of the article Hominini. I see no practical disadvantage, nor slippery slope, of putting them in the same place---and it certainly will help the lay reader in comprehending the context and the close-connection between them. Jbeans (talk) 03:01, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
 * let me copy-paste my rationale. I could imagine the two pages remaining separate, but they will have to very carefully reference each other so that this approach is actually going to be more difficult to maintain than the merger. Copy-paste: If you read the article (as opposed to just its title), it is in essence about time estimates for the process of hybrid speciation between the lineages of Pan and Homo. It is not about a hypothetical "last common ancestor", which would by definition be a single individual, but whose age is not only impossible but also pointless to recover. So, this means the topic of this article is an estimate of the age of the Hominini tribe. That's just what it is, de-facto, regardless of its title. The Hominini article partly re-hashes the same material, but more superficially. This basically makes the two pages a WP:CFORK. There is no value in keeping two short articles about the same material separate, even if their title suggest closely-related-but-technically-distinct topics. --dab (𒁳) 10:39, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Speciation between Pan and Homo occurred over millions of years.
The second paragraph of the lead is based on one controversial 2006 paper, which has not been accepted by other experts so far as I know. I suggest deleting it. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:38, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The article should certainly be updated. The Ardipithecus probably branched off of Pan in the middle Miocene Messinian which is 9 mya. It was certainly accepted in University texts I have a few other references I could add if that is not enough for the split from Pan. There are also many many fossils and species that show bigger gaps from Homo that are at least 3 mya. ie Australopithecines, Homo erectus, Homo habilis . I could go on.--Akrasia25 (talk) 13:15, 4 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I am going to start by moving the material from the lede back into the article under a new section called 'Speciation'. We can fix that and then rework the lede based on the article. The lede does not follow the article right now. Jump in when you can.--Akrasia25 (talk) 22:55, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Graecopithecus
This is a possible fossil evidence. Discovered by the German army in WW2 and only 2 known specimens. I updated the article.--Akrasia25 (talk) 14:35, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

hominin or homininan?
The article says that the members of the human clade are called "hominins". I believe that that is so on one classification, but on the classification currently favoured by Wikipedia they are called "homininans". Would somebody with greater knowledge than mine like to change this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prim Ethics (talk • contribs) 00:57, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Can someone check this?
Hi

In the AGE ESTIMATES section, there is this quote - In effect, there is now no a priori reason to presume that human-chimpanzee split times are especially recent, and the fossil evidence is now fully compatible with older chimpanzee–human divergence dates [7 to 10 Ma...

This doesn't sound right to me, but I don't have access to the site that it references. Would someone with access be able to check this and make whatever corrections that may be needed? Homerx007x (talk) 07:36, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ That is what the White paper says. And that paper references two other sources. Y. Haile-Selassie, G. Suwa, T. D. White, in Ardipithecus

kadabba: Late Miocene Evidence from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia, Y. Haile-Selassie, G. WoldeGabriel, Eds. (University of California, Berkeley, CA, 2009), pp. 159–236. AND

G. Suwa, R. T. Kono, S. Katoh, B. Asfaw, Y. Beyene, Nature 448, 921 (2007)

Misuse of the term "Hybrid Speciation"
The correct term here would be speciation with gene flow. Hybrid speciation refers to a special case where hybrids themselves form a divergent lineage, while both parental lineages remain distinct (three total lineages). Speciation with gene flow results in two lineages (a normal bifurcation), but recognizes that hybridization and gene flow occurred during the divergence of the lineages, meaning the divergence was not instantaneous. Genosticte (talk) 17:16, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I have deleted all references to hybridisation as possibly misleading. I have not added the term "speciation with gene flow" as I have not seen a reference for this, but you can add it if you have a reliable source. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:08, 9 August 2023 (UTC)