An international team led by Michel Brunet announced the discovery of a new hominid species, Australopithecus bahrelghazali, in the Bahr el Ghazal region of Chad. Dating to about 3.5-3 million years ago, this find extended the known range of early hominids into Central Africa, far from the East African rift valley where most australopithecines had been found. It provided crucial evidence that early human evolution was not confined to a single region of Africa.

The discovery of Australopithecus bahrelghazali expanded the geographic and imaginative map of human origins, challenging a Eurocentric or East African-centric narrative of our ancestry. This find, like the later discovery of Sahelanthropus tchadensis, has inspired poets to think about the breadth and complexity of the human story across the African continent. It has contributed to a more diverse and inclusive vision of our deep past, one that is rooted in the vast landscapes of Africa.