 Most cladistic analyses including Acrocanthosaurus have found it to be a carcharodontosaurid , usually in a basal position relative to the African Carcharodontosaurus and Giganotosaurus from South America . It has often been considered the sister taxon to the equally basal Eocarcharia , also from Africa . Neovenator , discovered in England , is often considered an even more basal carcharodontosaurid , or as a basal member of a sister group called Neovenatoridae . This suggests that the family originated in Europe and then dispersed into the southern continents ( at the time united as the supercontinent Gondwana ) . If Acrocanthosaurus was a carcharodontosaurid , then dispersal would also have occurred into North America . All known carcharodontosaurids lived during the early @-@ to @-@ middle Cretaceous Period . 
