Rama ancient ape, called Lufeng ancient ape and Kai ancient ape in China, is the leader of the gods in the Indian Sanskrit epic "Ramayana", and they live between 14 million and 8 million years ago.
In 1934, Lewis, a graduate student at Yale University in the United States, was the first to discover the fossil of the ancient ape in the West Warik Mountains on the border of India and Pakistan. Since then, such ancient ape fossils have been found in Tenanborg in Kenya, Pyrgs in Greece, Rudabanya in Hungary, Anatolia region in Turkey, as well as in The Bodwar Plateau in Pakistan and Kaiyuan and Lufeng Counties in Yunnan Province in China.
Among these fossils, fossil jaws and teeth account for the majority, while fossil skulls are rare. So where was the world's best-preserved fossil of the skull of the ancient ape Lamma found?
Since 1956, three fossils of Lama ancient apes have been found in Yunnan, China, namely The fossils of the Ancient Ape of Kaiyuan Lama (present-day Kaiyuan County, Yunnan), the fossils of the Ancient Ape of Lufeng (present-day Lufeng County, Yunnan), and the fossils of the Ancient Ape of Yuanmou Butterfly (now Yuanmou County, Yunnan). From then until 1965, some American paleoanthropologists emphasized that the Lamma ape was the earliest ancestor of mankind. However, since the fossils produced everywhere are limited to upper and lower bones and teeth, and are not complete skulls, the above claim has been questioned.
In 1975, Chinese scientists discovered an ancient man's site on the slope of the temple hill of Limeba Village, 9 kilometers northeast of Lufeng County, Yunnan Province. The site covers an area of 20,000 square meters and the fossil layer is about 5 meters thick. From 1975 to 1982, scientists have carried out many excavations here, and unearthed more than 1,000 fossils of Rama ancient ape and Siva ancient ape, including skulls, jaws, limb bones, teeth, etc., one of which has a relatively complete mandible retains a total of 12 incisors, canine teeth and foredentals. At the same time as the fossils of ancient apes, more than 10 kinds of animal fossils such as yoke-toothed elephants, three-toed horses, rhinos, clawed beasts, and antelopes were also found.
On April 9, 1980, scientists found the world's first fossil of the skull of the ancient ape Rama at the Lufeng site.
It is estimated that this fossil should have appeared more than 8 million years ago, and the ancient ape that owned this skull has the morphological characteristics of early humans, belongs to the human family, and can be identified as the earliest ancestor of human beings. Lufeng ancient ape fossil, the world's best-preserved fossil of the skull of the ancient ape, its discovery fills a major gap between the ancient ape 15 million years ago and the Yuanmou ape man 1.7 million years ago, which is of great significance for studying the status of ancient apes in the evolutionary system and the time and place of human origin.
The ancient ape of Rama occupies an important position in the history of the evolution of human ancestors, and is the first stage of human differentiation. The discovery of the fossil site of the ancient ape Lamma not only provides important information for studying the origin of humans, but also adds a new understanding of the nature of neo-Tertiary mammals in south China. The discovery of the fossil skull of the ancient ape of Rama shows that it is a representative of the middle from the evolution of apes to humans, with the morphological characteristics of early humans, belonging to the family Human, and surviving in the early Pliocene 8 million years ago.