Our oldest known ancestor could probably walk, say researchers

Academics pretty confident' extinct hominid species could walk as well as climb trees 7m years ago

The oldest known ancestor of humankind walked on two legs but could still climb trees like an ape, a study of some 7m-year-old bones suggests.

Researchers analysed the fossil remains of Sahelanthropus tchadensis, unearthed 21 years ago in the deserts of Chad, central Africa. At the time, the discovery was said to have had the impact of a small nuclear bomb" as it pushed back the ancestral line of hominids - the line leading to Homo sapiens - by a million years, closer to the split with chimpanzees.