Who was the first direct ancestor of modern humans?

Australopithecus, group of extinct primates closely related to, if not actually ancestors of, modern human beings and known from a series of fossils found at numerous sites in eastern, north-central, and southern Africa. For a time in the 1960s and ’70s, Ramapithecus was thought to be a distinct genus that was the first direct ancestor of modern humans (Homo sapiens).