The recent publications that described extremely old primate remains (Orrorin and Sahelanthropus), which may be early beings on the tortuous road to the emergence of humans, has set the circle of palaeoanthropologists abuzz (see A considered view November 2002 Earth Pages News).  Sooner or later, Scientific American was bound to commission an article in plain words that expressed all the conflicting views and  illustrated them magnificently, and so it has (Wond, K. 2003.  An ancestor to call our own.  Scientific American, January 2003, p. 42-51).