Based on
O. macedoniensis' dental and facial
anatomy, it has been suggested that
Ouranopithecus was actually a
dryopithecine. However, it is probably more closely related to the
Ponginae. Some researchers consider
O. macedoniensis to be the last common ancestor of humans (hominins) and the other apes, and a forerunner to
australopithecines and humans, although this is very controversial and not widely accepted. It is true that
O. macedoniensis shares derived features with some early
hominins (such as the frontal sinus, a cavity in the forehead), but they are almost certainly not closely related species. In 1984, British palaeontologists Peter Andrews and Lawrence B. Martin classified
Graecopithecus and
Ouranopithecus as synonyms (same taxon) and treated them as members of the genus
Sivapithecus. However, comparative analysis showed that there is not enough data to support the synonymy. When more
O. macedoniensis fossils were discovered including part of the skull in the 1990s, it became apparent that
O. macedoniensis and
G. freybergi are distinct species. In the light of new data, in 1997, Australian palaeontologist David W. Cameron treated
Graecopithecus as a valid genus based on taxonomic
priority and renamed
O. macedoniensis as
Graecopithecus macedoniensis. However, better
O. macedoniensis specimens were found including a new species
Ouranopithecus turkae from Turkey that warranted separation of the genus. Furthermore, a controversial paper in 2017 claimed that
Graecopithecus is more closely related to hominins than to other great apes, which if true would clearly distinguish it from
Ouranopithecus specimens. Separate genus for the two therefore continue to be generally adopted. ==See also==