7 April 2005
The look of Toumaï
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The discovery of the skull known as Toumaï four years ago in Chad began a controversy. Faunal studies suggested an age close to 7 million years; a small cranium suggested chimpanzee-like brain size. The team that found Toumaï considered it to be a hominid on our side of the chimp-human divide, but others thought it more ape-like. Important finds of teeth and jaw pieces of the Toumaï species, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, now help to distance the species from apes, suggesting that it is a hominid closely related to the last common ancestor of chimps and humans. A virtual reconstruction of the Toumaï cranium provides more evidence of a close relationship to humans — and this week's cover. You are looking at the face of the earliest known hominid. (Cover by MPFT; M. Brunet, E. Daynes, Ph. Plailly and A. Garaudel contributed).
New material of the earliest hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad
MICHEL BRUNET et al.
Nature 434, 752–755 (2005); doi:10.1038/nature03392
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Virtual cranial reconstruction of Sahelanthropus tchadensis
CHRISTOPH P. E. ZOLLIKOFER et al.
Nature 434, 755–759 (2005); doi:10.1038/nature03397
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