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Seven-million-year-old femur suggests ancient human relative walked upright

Formal description of the leg bone, which belongs to Sahelanthropus tchadensis, comes two decades after it was discovered.
  1. Ewen Callaway
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A battered fossil leg bone discovered more than 20 years ago in Chad is finally making its scientific debut. Researchers say that the remains, described today in Nature, show that a species called Sahelanthropus tchadensis was an ancient human relative that walked on two feet1.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02313-7

Read the related News & Views: ‘Standing up for the earliest bipedal hominins’

References

  1. Daver, G. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04901-z (2022).

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  3. Macchiarelli, R., Bergeret-Medina., A., Marchi, D. & Wood, B. J. Hum. Evol. 149, 102898 (2020).

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  4. Lieberman, D. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02226-5 (2022).

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  5. Cazenave, M., Kivell, T., Pina, M., Begun, D. R. & Skinner, M. M. J. Hum. Evol. 167, 103183 (2022).

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