Toumai: Oldest ancestor? Image: MPFT
Posted on 07/10/2002 1:00:11 PM PDT by Kermit
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Wednesday, 10 July, 2002, 18:00 GMT 19:00 UK
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| By Ivan Noble BBC News Online science staff |
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 It's the most important find in living memory  |
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Henry Gee
Nature |
"I knew I would one day find it... I've been looking for 25 years," said Michel Brunet of the University of Poitiers, France.
Scientists say it is the most important discovery in the search for the origins of humankind since the first Australopithecus "ape-man" remains were found in Africa in the 1920s.
The newly discovered skull finally puts to rest any idea that there might be a single "missing link" between humans and chimpanzees, they say.
Messy evolution
Analysis of the ancient find is not yet complete, but already it is clear that it has an apparently puzzling combination of modern and ancient features.
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"It shows us there wasn't a nice steady progression from ancient hominids to what we are today," he told BBC News Online.
"It's the most important find in living memory, the most important since the australopithecines in the 1920s.
"It's amazing to find such a wonderful skull that's so old," he said.
What is the skull's significance?
The skull is so old that it comes from a time when the creatures which were to become modern humans had not long diverged from the line that would become chimpanzees.
There were very few of these creatures around relative to the number of people in the world today, and only a tiny percentage of them were ever fossilised.
So despite all the false starts, failed experiments and ultimate winners produced by evolution, the evidence for what went on between 10 and five million years ago is very scarce.
Grandparent, great uncle, great aunt?
There will be plenty of debate about where the Chad skull fits into the incomplete and sketchy picture researchers have drawn for the origins of the human species.
 The hominid's jaw was found later
Image: MPFT |
Sahelanthropus tchadensis, as the find has been named, may turn out to be a direct human ancestor or it may prove to be a member of a side branch of our family tree.
The team which found the skull believes it is that of a male, but even that is not 100% clear.
"They've called it a male individual, based on the strong brow ridge, but it's equally possible it's a female," said Professor Stringer.
Future finds may make the whole picture of human evolution clearer.
"We've got to be ready for shocks and surprises to come," he said.
The Sahelanthropus has been nicknamed Toumai, a name often given to children born in the dry season in Chad.
Full details of the discovery appear in the journal Nature.
One would have hoped...
There's a great scene/line in the movie "Strange Days" that makes the same point.
Scene: Lenny (Ralph Feinnes) comes out of a store to see his car about to be towed away. He runs across the street to try to see if he can convince the tow truck driver to leave his car alone. As he runs up to the tow truck driver, calling out "wait, hold it, let's talk about this" in a non-threatening manner, the tow truck driver whips out a gun and sticks it in Lenny's face with a menacing glare.
Lenny rolls his eyes, shakes his head, and in an exasperated voice asks, "Two million years of human evolution, and *that's* the best idea you can come up with?"
Look up the word "hominid" to see the flaw in your first sentence.
Apes have changed a lot, actually. There are roughly many differences between modern apes and X-million-year-old fossil apes as there are between modern humans and X-million-year-old hominid fossils.
Nope that's not the "good" thing about it. ;-)
One species doesn't exactly beget another. Another species happens when one group that is closely related to another STOPS begetting with the other group. Beagles and greyhounds are both varieties of the same species. If one of them changed so drastically that its offspring could no longer reproduce with the other they would then be two distinct species.
Mr. Brunet was later quoted as saying: "Now, if I could just find my $@&*$@%$ car keys!!"
If this is correct then so what! BUT!
It's a bit easier to get when you consider that we didn't evolve from apes. Both apes and man evolved on separate paths from something else.
It takes real tolerance to believe your grandmother (add a few greats in there) was a lizard.
Many people, those who are able to believe mankind evolved from the lowest form of life. can identify with caves. There is all of that empty space to think about. Seriously, Doc, it takes more faith to believe the universe is a chance proposition than it does to believe that God created everything. By this reckoning, you must be a very religious person.
Come now. That is a very simple cop-out. If one species evolves, others must as well. Life is life. It doesn't pick and choose.
The faithful don't need further evidence. For secular people, the evidence lies in the things around them. If that doesn't work you, just consider why there is so much opposition to something that doesn't exist.
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