The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

<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.