Franck Guy

TL;DR: The discovery of six hominid specimens from Chad, central Africa, 2,500 km from the East African Rift Valley, suggest that the earliest members of the hominids 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.

TL;DR: The fauna from Toros-Menalla site 266 suggests that S. tchadensis lived close to a lake, but not far from a sandy desert, perhaps the oldest record of desert conditions in the Neogene of northern central Africa.

TL;DR: A detailed virtual reconstruction of the TM 266 cranium confirms that S. tchadensis is a hominid and is not more closely related to the African great apes, and indicates that bipedalism was present in the earliest known hominids, and probably arose soon after the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages.

TL;DR: New dental and mandibular specimens from three Toros-Menalla fossiliferous localities of the same age are described, including a lower canine consistent with a non-honing C/P3 complex, post-canine teeth with primitive root morphology and intermediate radial enamel thickness, which confirm the morphological differences between S. tchadensis and African apes.

TL;DR: The results not only confirm that Sahelanthropus tchadensis cranium is a hominid but also reveal a unique mosaic of characters that is most similar to Australopithecus, particularly in the basicranium.