A nearly 7-million-year-old skull recently described as the earliest known member of the human evolutionary family instead represents an ancient ape, say anthropologist Milford H. Wolpoff of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and his colleagues. The creature, Sahelanthropus tchadensis (SN: 7/13/02, p. 19: Evolution’s Surprise: Fossil find uproots our early ancestors), has more in common with fossil and modern apes than with fossil ancestors of humans, the researchers argue in the Oct.
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