Over the last few years, the word "hominin" has crept into the
public news stories about our human ancestors. This is not a
misspelling for hominid; this reflects an evolutionary change in
the understanding of what it means to be human. Up until the
1980s, paleoanthropologists generally followed the taxonomic
system followed by the 18th century scientist Carl Linnaeus,
when they spoke of the various species of humans. The family of
Hominoids included the subfamily of Hominids (humans and their
ancestors) and Anthropoids (chimps, gorillas, and orangutans).
The problem is, recent molecular studies show that humans,
chimps and gorillas are closer to one another than orangutans.
So, scientists split the Hominoids into two subfamilies:
Ponginae (orangutans) and Homininae (humans and their ancestors,
and chimps and gorillas). But, we still need a way to discuss
humans and their ancestors as a separate group, so researchers
have proposed a further breakdown of the Homininae subfamily, to
include Hominini (humans and