News Anthropology

Untangling Ancient Roots: Earliest hominid shows new, improved face

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

Two new lines of evidence bolster the claim that the oldest known member of the human-evolutionary family lived in central Africa between 6 million and 7 million years ago.

MAKING HEADWAY. A digitally reconstructed view of an ancient skull that discoverers regard as the earliest known human ancestor. Brunet

In 2001, at a site in Chad, anthropologist Michel Brunet of the University of Poitiers in France and his coworkers found jaw fragments, isolated teeth, and the nearly complete skull of a creature that the researchers identified as a hominid and assigned to the category Sahelanthropus tchadensis.