Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 21, 1990                   TAG: 9006210486
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/12   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

SKEPTICISM GREETS CLAIM OF BEAST'S LINK TO HUMANS

The claim met sharp skepticism from experts who said they were not convinced by the researchers' anatomical analysis of a remnant of the creature's skull.

"I don't believe for a minute" that the beast is a direct human ancestor, Peter Andrews of the Natural History Museum in London said in a telephone interview.

The analysis also implies that ancestors of humans may have started evolving away from ancestors of chimps and gorillas millions of years earlier than many scientists believe.

It is presented in the British journal Nature by L. de Bonis of the University of Poitiers in France, G. Bouvrain and D. Geraads of the University of Paris and G. Koufos of the University of Thessalonika in Greece.

The fossil is thought to be 9 million to 10 million years old. It represents a previously known animal called Ouranopithecus macedoniensis.

The fossil includes the right part and a portion of the left part of an adult's face, plus the upper jaw with most of the teeth, researchers said.

They said the fossil's anatomy suggests that Ouranopithecus macedoniensis appeared on the human branch of the evolutionary tree after that lineage split from the ancestors of gibbons, orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees.

That would make it a direct ancestor of humans.