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Millennium Ancestor Scientists believe they've found our oldest ancestors by dating Hominid fossils back to 6 million years ago. Scientists say these fossils are linked to our oldest ancestors. The find is controversial for a number of reasons. Part of the controversy stems from the claim that the fossils are more closely related to early specimens of genus Homo than Australopithecine finds from 3.5 million to 2 million years ago. The research team suggests that the fossil known as Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) is not ancestral to modern humans, but is a side branch of hominid evolution that eventually became extinct. The find is also controversial because of the claim that they represent a bipedal creature. Previously the oldest bipedal hominids were less than 4 million years old. Six million years is also the age routinely cited by scientists who study the DNA of human and other apes as the age of the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.
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