#forerunner

• Predecessor — The feminine form of antecessor; a woman who preceded someone in an office, dignity, or possession, or an ancestral species, generation, or structure from which a current organism evolved. As an adjective, it describes a prior feminine entity or biological line that paves the way for its successors.
• Predecessor — A person who preceded someone in an office, dignity, position, or possession of property; a forerunner, predecessor, or ancestor of a family or evolutionary lineage. In a biological and anthropological sense, the term denotes an ancestral organism or archaic species from which current life forms developed through successive genetic transformations.