List of Important Primate and Hominin Fossils

The following charts give a brief overview of several notable primate fossil finds relating to human evolution. As there are thousands of fossils, this overview is not meant to be complete, but does show some of the most important finds. The fossils are arranged by approximate age as determined by radiometric dating and/or incremental dating. The species name represents current consensus, when there is no clear scientific consensus the other possible classifications are indicated; deprecated classifications may be found on the fossil's page. Not all the fossils shown are considered direct ancestors to Homo sapiens but are very closely related to direct ancestors and are therefore important to the study of the lineage.

Abbreviations used in fossil catalog name

 * AL - Afar Locality, Ethiopia
 * ARA-VP - Aramis Vertebrate Paleontology, Ethiopia
 * BOU-VP - Bouri Vertebrate Paleontology, Ethiopia
 * ER - East (Lake) Rudolf, Kenya
 * KGA - Konso-Gardula, Ethiopia
 * KNM - Kenya National Museum
 * KP - Kanapoi, Kenya
 * OH - Olduvai Hominid, Tanzania
 * SK - Swartkrans, South Africa
 * Sts,Stw - Sterkfontein, South Africa
 * TM - Transvaal Museum, South Africa
 * TM - Toros-Menalla, Chad
 * WT - West (Lake) Turkana, Kenya