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Toumaï, the face of the deep
At between
6 and 7 million years old, this skull is the earliest known record of the human
family. Discovered in Chad in Central Africa, the new find, nicknamed 'Toumaï',
comes from the crucial yet little-known interval when the human lineage was becoming
distinct from that of chimpanzees. Because of this, the new find will galvanize
the field of human origins like no other in living memory perhaps not since
1925, when Raymond Dart described the first 'ape-man', Australopithecus africanus,
transforming our ideas about human origins forever. A lifetime later, Toumaï
raises the stakes once again and the consequences cannot yet be guessed. Dart's
classic paper was published in Nature, as have most of the milestones in
human origins and evolution. To celebrate the new find, we are proud to offer
a selection of ten of the very best from Nature's archives, including Dart's
classic paper.
A
new hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad, Central Africa
MICHEL BRUNET, FRANCK GUY, DAVID PILBEAM, HASSANE TAISSO MACKAYE, ANDOSSA LIKIUS,
DJIMDOUMALBAYE AHOUNTA, ALAIN BEAUVILAIN, C�CILE BLONDEL, HERV� BOCHERENS, JEAN-RENAUD
BOISSERIE, LOUIS DE BONIS, YVES COPPENS, JEAN DEJAX, CHRISTIANE DENYS, PHILIPPE
DURINGER, V�RA EISENMANN, GONGDIB� FANONE, PIERRE FRONTY, DENIS GERAADS, THOMAS
LEHMANN, FABRICE LIHOREAU, ANTOINE LOUCHART, ADOUM MAHAMAT, GILDAS MERCERON, GUY
MOUCHELIN, OLGA OTERO, PABLO PELAEZ CAMPOMANES, MARCIA PONCE DE LEON, JEAN-CLAUDE
RAGE, MICHEL SAPANET, MATHIEU SCHUSTER, JEAN SUDRE, PASCAL TASSY, XAVIER VALENTIN,
PATRICK VIGNAUD, LAURENT VIRIOT, ANTOINE ZAZZO & CHRISTOPH ZOLLIKOFER Nature
418, 145151 (2002); doi:10.1038/nature00879 | Summary
| Full Text (HTML
/ PDF) |
Geology and palaeontology of the Upper Miocene Toros-Menalla
hominid locality, Chad PATRICK VIGNAUD, PHILIPPE
DURINGER, HASSANE TAÏSSO MACKAYE, ANDOSSA LIKIUS, C�CILE BLONDEL, JEAN-RENAUD
BOISSERIE, LOUIS DE BONIS, V�RA EISENMANN, MARIE-ESTHER ETIENNE, DENIS GERAADS,
FRANCK GUY, THOMAS LEHMANN, FABRICE LIHOREAU, NIEVES LOPEZ-MARTINEZ, C�CILE MOURER-CHAUVIR�,
OLGA OTERO, JEAN-CLAUDE RAGE, MATHIEU SCHUSTER, LAURENT VIRIOT, ANTOINE ZAZZO
& MICHEL BRUNET Nature 418, 152155 (2002); doi:10.1038/nature00880
| Summary | Full
Text (HTML / PDF) |
Palaeoanthropology: Hominid revelations from Chad
BERNARD WOOD The story of human origins in Africa takes a twist with the description
of a 67-million-year-old cranium from Chad. The discovery hints at the likely
diversity of early hominids. Nature 418, 133135 (2002);
doi:10.1038/418133a | Full
Text (HTML / PDF) |
Oldest
human forebear found New-found skull could sink our current ideas about
human evolution. | Full
Text (HTML / PDF) | Toumaï,
face of the deep Earliest known record of human family turns up in Chad.
| Full Text (HTML
/ PDF) | Classic papersDart,
R. A. Australopithecus africanus: The Man-Ape of South Africa Nature
115, 195199 (1925) When Dart, an anatomist from South Africa,
reported the first 'ape-man', he was derided by the same people who fell for the
fraudulent Piltdown Man. But Piltdown was a fake and Dart was vindicated. The
modern study of human origins starts here. | Full
Text (PDF) | Leakey, L. S. B. A new fossil
skull from Olduvai Nature 184, 491493 (1959) Fossil-hunter
Louis Leakey had been scouring East Africa for clues about human origins in vain
for 30 years before he (or rather, his wife) hit the jackpot at Olduvai Gorge
in Tanzania. The new player on the fossil scene was lantern-jawed 'Nutcracker
man'. | Full Text (PDF) |
Leakey, L. S. B., Tobias, P. V. and Napier, J. R. A new
species of the genus Homo from Olduvai Gorge. Nature 202,
79 (1964) Leakey scores again with fossils associated with primitive
tools. He announces Homo habilis 'handy man' the first fossil
member of our own genus; and with him, the first stirrings of technology.
| Full Text (PDF) | Leakey,
R. E. F. Evidence for an advanced Plio-Pleistocene hominid from East Rudolf, Kenya
Nature 242, 447450 (1973) Richard Leakey son of
Louis describes a skull as iconic as they come, but always known enigmatically
as '1470'. Thought to belong to an early form of Homo (now Homo rudolfensis),
this specimen is a key fossil in the understanding of human origins. |
Full Text (PDF) | Johanson,
D. C. and Taieb, M. Plio-Pleistocene hominid discoveries in Hadar, Ethiopia
Nature 260, 293297 (1976) Donald Johanson pushes the human
story back beyond the 3-million-year-mark with a skeleton, later assigned to Australopithecus
afarensis. The skeleton is now known as 'Lucy', after Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds, the Beatles' tune popular in the field camp. |
Full Text (PDF) | Leakey,
M. D. and Hay, R. L. Pliocene footprints in the Laetolil Beds at Laetoli, northern
Tanzania Nature 278, 317323 (1979) When a volcanic
eruption sent a rain of ash over what is now Tanzania, an adult and child, probably
both Australopithecus afarensis, set out to watch the show leaving,
as a poignant souvenir, perfect and very modern-looking footprints, preserved
in the ashfall. | Full Text
(PDF) | Brown, F., Harris, J., Leakey, R. and
Walker, A. Early Homo erectus skeleton from west Lake Turkana, Kenya
Nature 316, 788792 (1985) This report of a young but
surprisingly tall young Homo erectus male raises many questions about our
own African genesis, and the origins of that very human feature called 'childhood'.
| Full Text (PDF) | Cann,
R. L., Stoneking, M. & Wilson, A. Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution Nature
325, 3136 (1987) A molecular bombshell that traces the human story
by comparing mitochondrial DNA frrom modern humans. The message is clear
all modern humans have their roots in Africa, and surprisingly recently, between
100,000 and 200,000 years ago. | Full
Text (PDF) | Arsuaga, J.-L., Martínez,
I., Gracia, A., Carretero, J.-M. & Carbonell, A. Three new human skulls from
the Sima de los Huesos Middle Pleistocene site in Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain
Nature 362, 534537 (1993) The 'Pit of Bones' near Burgos
in Spain is a treasure-trove of information on the first Europeans. At around
300,000 years old, these skulls may have been close to the ancestry of the classic
cave-man, Neanderthal Man. | Full
Text (PDF) | White,
T. D., Suwa, G. and Asfaw, B. Australopithecus ramidus, a new species of
early hominid from Aramis, Ethiopia Nature 371, 306312
(1994) Now known as Ardipithecus ramidus, this extremely primitive
creature was the first member of the human family known from beyond 4 million
years ago. Still controversial, its affinities with the new finds from Chad have
yet to be investigated. | Full
Text (PDF) | |