Technology & Science
Femoral-Tubercle Discovery Pushes Bipedalism to 7 MYA in Sahelanthropus
A 2 Jan 2026 Science Advances re-analysis of Sahelanthropus leg bones reports a hominin-only femoral tubercle, reviving the claim that the 7-million-year-old ape routinely walked upright.
Focusing Facts
- The paper’s 3D scans revealed a pronounced femoral tubercle—previously documented only in bipedal hominins—on the Chad femur TM 266-01-063, collected in 2001.
- Researchers also found the femur-to-ulna length ratio falls outside the ape range and overlaps early Australopithecus, suggesting longer legs relative to arms than knuckle-walking apes.
- Skeptics such as Clément Zanolli and Marine Cazenave contend the same bone contours match African great apes, underscoring that no new fossils were added—only new measurements.
Context
Paleoanthropology has repeatedly swung on single bones: the 1924 Taung child shifted human origins to Africa, while the 1912 Piltdown forgery misled the field for 40 years. This new claim fits that pattern, leveraging 21st-century 3D morphometrics rather than chisels, yet still resting on fragmentary remains from one site. It reflects the long trend toward pushing key human traits—stone tools (Lomekwi, 3.3 MYA), fire use (Wonderwerk, 1 MYA), now bipedalism—incrementally deeper in time as methods improve. If upheld, the finding rewrites the adaptive landscape after the Pan–Homo split, implying upright walking preceded brain expansion by at least five million years; if overturned, it will join a lineage of contested “earliest ancestor” announcements. Either way, on a 100-year horizon this debate illustrates how technological re-inspection, not new digs, is increasingly steering human-origin narratives.
Perspectives
Press-release and institutional science outlets
Mirage News, EurekAlert! — Frame the fresh 3-D bone study as decisive proof that Sahelanthropus was a habitual upright walker, making it the oldest known member of the human lineage. Because they largely reproduce the study team’s own news release, they omit dissenting researchers and may overstate certainty in order to promote the institution’s work and funding prestige.
Popular science websites seeking eye-catching breakthroughs
ScienceAlert, Earth.com, IFLScience — Portray the discovery as an ‘eerily human’ breakthrough that firmly pushes the origin of bipedalism back to seven million years ago. Headline-driven coverage simplifies the complex anatomical dispute and glosses over contrary evidence to maximise clicks and social-media shareability.
Cautious science journalism outlets highlighting ongoing controversy
New Scientist, Yahoo News UK — Acknowledge the new findings but stress that the knuckle-walker-vs-upright debate remains unresolved and will only be settled with more fossils. By foregrounding disagreement and quoting skeptical experts, they may amplify residual uncertainty to craft a compelling ‘scientific feud’ narrative.