SCIENCE / MEDICINE : Fossil Prompts Claims, Skepticism

French and Greek paleontologists have unearthed bones from the face of an ancient skull in northern Greece that they claim may be the oldest fossil remains of a human ancestor after human predecessors separated from the apes. The discovery provoked immediate skepticism among other researchers.

The bones, which were described in the British journal Nature, include the right part of the face of an adult male and portions of the frontal bone, left part of the face, upper jaw and a complete set of teeth except for a right molar.

“If it were true that this was the human ancestor and not the ape-human ancestor, it would be a very important find . . . but I have my doubts about this interpretation,” said anatomist Alan Walker of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Most experts believe that apes and humans diverged in their evolution between 5 million and 8 million years ago. Before the new discovery, the oldest fossil remains for human ancestors were from a small-brained, heavy-jawed creature from east and south Africa, known as Australopithecus, dating back 4 million years.