Late Miocene
{{Short description|Sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch}}
{{Neogene}}
The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million years ago) to 5.333 Ma.
The evolution of ''Homo''
The gibbons (family Hylobatidae) and orangutans (genus Pongo) were the first groups to split from the line leading to the hominins, including humans, then gorillas (genus Gorilla), and finally chimpanzees and bonobos (genus Pan). The splitting date between hominin and chimpanzee lineages is placed by some between 4 and 8 million years ago, that is, during the Late Miocene.{{Cite book |last=Dawkins |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Dawkins |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/56617123 |title=The ancestor's tale : a pilgrimage to the dawn of evolution |date=2004 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |isbn=0-618-00583-8 |location=Boston |oclc=56617123}}{{cite web |title=Find Time of Divergence: Hominidae versus Hylobatidae |url=http://www.timetree.org/index.php?taxon_a=Hominidae&taxon_b=Hylobatidae&submit=Search |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150418222205/http://www.timetree.org/index.php?taxon_a=Hominidae&taxon_b=Hylobatidae&submit=Search |archive-date=2015-04-18 |access-date=April 18, 2015 |website=TimeTree}}{{cite journal |last=Ruvolo |first=M. |date=October 1997 |title=Genetic Diversity in Hominoid Primates |journal=Annual Review of Anthropology |volume=26 |pages=515–540 |doi=10.1146/annurev.anthro.26.1.515 |issn=0084-6570}}{{cite journal |last=Ruvolo |first=M |date=March 1997 |title=Molecular Phylogeny of the Hominoids: Inferences from Multiple Independent DNA Sequence Data Sets |journal=Molecular Biology and Evolution |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=248–265 |doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a025761 |issn=0737-4038 |pmid=9066793 |doi-access=free}}
References
{{reflist}}