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  • From: Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>
  • To: monkeywire AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [monkeywire] Man or Gorilla?
  • Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 23:01:38 -0500

<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=585&ncid=585&e=8&u=/nm/20020712/sc_nm/science_skull_dc_3>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=585&ncid=585&e=8&u=/nm/20020712/sc_nm/science_skull_dc_3

(thanks to Josh Greenman)

Man or Gorilla? Experts at Odds over Ancient Skull
Fri Jul 12, 4:12 PM ET

By Claude Canellas

POITIERS, France (Reuters) - A 7-million-year-old skull gave its discoverer a headache Friday as critics disputed his claim to have found the oldest known human ancestor.


Michel Brunet, head of an archeological team that unearthed the skull in Chad, showed off his find at the University of Poitiers in western France and recounted the discovery that was published this week in the scientific journal Nature.

But his moment of triumph was clouded by a chorus of critics, especially from a Paris scientist who contended Brunet actually had found the skull of an ancient female gorilla.

Head of the university's human paleontology laboratory, Brunet defended his claim at a news conference, waving the latest edition of Nature and declaring: "Here you see the baptismal certificate of this hominid."

Experts said the finding of the skull, whose age is estimated at 6 to 7 million years old, significantly pushed back the date of the earliest known human ancestor.

"I've talked with all the world's paleoanthropologists," he explained when asked about his critics.

"Nature published this after making the comparisons I made, after hearing from five reviewers who were certainly chosen from among the greatest specialists and certainly agree with me. If one or two people somewhere don't agree with me, that's their problem," he said. "One cannot confuse it with a gorilla."

One critic, Brigitte Senut of the National History Museum in Paris, said characteristics Brunet used to deduce a human link actually pointed to it being the skull of a prehistoric female gorilla. Two other French experts also have cast doubt on Brunet's claim.

A self-confessed heretic, Senut said the skull's short face and small canine teeth merely pointed to a female and were not conclusive evidence that it was a hominid.

"I tend toward thinking this is the skull of a female gorilla," she told Reuters. "The characteristics taken to conclude this new skull is a hominid are sexual characteristics. Moreover, other characteristics such as the occipital crest (the back of the neck where the neck muscles attach) ... remind me much more of the gorilla," she said.

A 'SMALL NUCLEAR BOMB'

So little is known about the period of history represented by the skull that one scientist who has seen has said the discovery would have the impact of a "small nuclear bomb" among students of human evolution.

The skull, discovered last year, has been dubbed "Toumai," the name usually given in the central African country to children who are born close to the dry season.

Ten million years ago the world had an abundance of apes and it was not until 5 million years later that the first good records of hominids -- or members of the human family, distinct from chimpanzees and other apes -- appeared.

Brunet admitted that he could not prove that Toumai had walked upright, a crucial difference between apes and humans, because he had not found any leg or arm bones with the skull.

Senut contested the theory that Toumai represented the missing link of human evolution and cited the case of a skull discovered in the 1960s and accepted for 20 years as that of a hominid before experts finally agreed it was a female gorilla.

Yves Coppens of the College of France said the skull had an ambiguous shape, with the front looking pre-human but the back like that of a large monkey.

"The exact status of this new primate is not yet certain," he told the daily Le Figaro.

His colleague at the College, Pascal Picq, described the skull as "pre-human" and suggested chemical research to establish Toumai's diet or a reconstruction of the skull by computer imaging could determine whether it was man or another type of primate.



  • [monkeywire] Man or Gorilla?, Carrie McLaren, 07/15/2002

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