An international team of researchers has uncovered one of the most sensational fossil finds in living memory: the well-preserved skull of a chimp-size animal that doesn't fit any known species. It was almost certainly a hominid — a member of a subdivision of the primate family whose only living representative is modern man. And it has left scientists gasping with astonishment for several reasons. To start with, it is nearly 7 million years old — a million years more ancient than the previous record holder. It almost certainly dates from very near that crucial moment in prehistory when hominids began to tread an evolutionary path that diverged from that of chimps, our closest living relatives.
