GHANA: MEET THE OLDEST MEMBER OF THE HUMAN FAMILY

After more than a decade of digging, researchers in Chad, Central Africa, have made the fossil discovery of a lifetime: a nearly complete skull of the oldest and most primitive member of the human family yet known. Nicknamed Touma - or "hope of life" in the local Goran language - it belongs to an entirely new genus and species of hominid, Sahelanthropus tchadensis. And at almost seven million years old, it has taken scientists several crucial steps closer to the point in time at which humans and chimpanzees diverged. Yet as is the case for most spectacular finds, this one raises as many questions, if not more, than it answers.