Skull find sparks controversy

The near-complete cranium, jawbone and teeth were described in the journal Nature as belonging to the oldest human-like creature, or hominid, yet discovered - about seven million years old.

But the scientists who last year unearthed the remains of a different creature, which was dated to be slightly younger, hit out at the latest announcement.

Dr Brigitte Senut, of the Natural History Museum in Paris, France, said the new skull, discovered by countryman Professor Michel Brunet and his team, looked to her like an ancient female gorilla.

She told the Reuters news agency that the creature's short face and small canines merely pointed to it being a female and were not conclusive evidence that it was a hominid.

Kenyan find

"I tend towards thinking this is the skull of a female gorilla," Dr Senut said. "The characteristics taken to conclude that 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, saying older gorillas also had these characteristics.

One of Dr Senut's colleagues, Dr Martin Pickford, who was in London this week, is also reported to have told peers that he thought the new Chadian skull was from a "proto-gorilla".

In January last year, Senut, Pickford and colleagues announced the discovery of Kenyan fossils - a piece of jaw, teeth, a fingertip, an arm, and a sturdy leg bone - which they said came from a six-million-year old hominid they dubbed the "Millennium Man".

When details of this discovery were then published in the French journal Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences, the creature was given the formal classification Orrorin tugenensis.

It, too, got a frosty reception from rival researchers, who were also critical of the team's decision to remove the fossils from Kenya.

Government praise

Meanwhile, France's new research minister, the former astronaut Claudie Haignere, congratulated Professor Michel Brunet on Friday on his discovery.

The minister said the new skull "opened up fascinating perspectives on the origins of man".

She confirmed the specimen, nicknamed Toumai, would be kept in the Central African republic where it was found.

The science of anthropology is known to be fiercely competitive, with each new discovery received with cool scepticism by the rival groups who are all digging in different parts of Africa.

It is left to the journals and the process of peer review to attempt to steer the science through the various claims and counter claims.

Toumai, classified formally as Sahelanthropus tchadensis, was hailed in Nature as potentially the most important discovery in the search for the origins of humankind since the first Australopithecus "ape-man" remains were found in Africa in the 1920s.