Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A new hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad, Central Africa

2002; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 418; Issue: 6894 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/nature00879

1476-4687

Michel Brunet, Franck Guy, David Pilbeam, Hassane Taïsso Mackaye, Andossa Likius, Ahounta Djimdoumalbaye, Alain Beauvilain, Cécile Blondel, Hervé Bocherens, Jean‐Renaud Boisserie, Louis de Bonis, Yves Coppens, Jean Dejax, Christiane Denys, Philippe Duringer, Véra Eisenmann, Gongdibé Fanone, Pierre Fronty, Denis Geraads, Thomas Lehmann, Fabrice Lihoreau, Antoine Louchart, Adoum Mahamat, Gildas Merceron, Guy Mouchelin, Olga Otero, Pablo Peláez‐Campomanes, Marcia S. Ponce de León, Jean‐Claude Rage, Michel Sapanet, Mathieu Schuster, Jean Sudre, Pascal Tassy, Xavier Valentin, Patrick Vignaud, Laurent Viriot, Antoine Zazzo, Christoph P. E. Zollikofer,

Primate Behavior and Ecology

The search for the earliest fossil evidence of the human lineage has been concentrated in East Africa. Here we report the discovery of six hominid specimens from Chad, central Africa, 2,500 km from the East African Rift Valley. The fossils include a nearly complete cranium and fragmentary lower jaws. The associated fauna suggest the fossils are between 6 and 7 million years old. The fossils display a unique mosaic of primitive and derived characters, and constitute a new genus and species of hominid. The distance from the Rift Valley, and the great antiquity of the fossils, suggest that the earliest members of the hominid clade were more widely distributed than has been thought, and that the divergence between the human and chimpanzee lineages was earlier than indicated by most molecular studies.