1. Anthropologisches Institut/MultiMedia Laboratorium, Universität Zürich-Irchel, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland
2. Peabody Museum, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
3. Laboratoire de Géobiologie, Biochronologie et Paléontologie Humaine, CNRS UMR 6046, Faculté des Sciences, Université de Poitiers, 40 Avenue du Recteur Pineau, 86022 Poitiers Cedex, France
4. Université de N'Djamena, BP 1117, N'Djamena, Tchad

Correspondence to: Michel Brunet³ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to M.B. (Email: michel.brunet@univ-poitiers.fr).

Abstract

Previous research in Chad at the Toros-Menalla 266 fossiliferous locality (about 7 million years old) uncovered a nearly complete cranium (TM 266-01-60-1), three mandibular fragments and several isolated teeth attributed to Sahelanthropus tchadensis ^{1, 2, 3}. Of this material, the cranium is especially important for testing hypotheses about the systematics and behavioural characteristics of this species, but is partly distorted from fracturing, displacement and plastic deformation. Here we present a detailed virtual reconstruction of the TM 266 cranium that corrects these distortions. The reconstruction confirms that S. tchadensis is a hominid and is not more closely related to the African great apes^{4, 5}. Analysis of the basicranium further indicates that S. tchadensis might have been an upright biped, suggesting that bipedalism was present in the earliest known hominids, and probably arose soon after the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages.

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