A fossil find of an ape-like creature with human features may suggest that humans evolved in a different time and place than previously thought.

The 2 million-year-old fossil, discovered in South Africa in 2008 called Australopithecus sediba, is now reshaping the way paleoanthropologists view human evolution. Scientists are now saying this ancient species could be a plausible ancestors of modern humans.

Until this discovery, the famous tool-making Homo habilis was considered the bridge between the Australopithecines and modern humans. But Dr. Lee Berger, discoverer of the fossils says the two A. sediba whose skeletons were found were crafting tools even before Homo habilis.

The fossils were accurately dated by a team led by Dr. Andy Herries from La Trobe University and are 1.98 million years old.

"People are going to debate exactly what it all means for a very, very long time, but the point is that it is so rare to find fossils that are this complete," he said.

"They share traits that are like early human ancestors that are still sort of very, very ape-like but they stand upright.

"They are bipedal but they still have relatively small brains and they share a lot of anatomical features ... a lot more like what we would define as the beginnings of more human people - sort of the beginnings of what we call the genus Homo."

In five articles published in the journal Science, Berger and his team describe the species new combinations of apelike and humanlike features in the hand, foot and pelvis. The hand is partly apelike with strong fingers to climb tree but is also human like in having a long thumb that could help with using tools. The species has an apelike brain but had already started evolving toward human lines.

The mixture of apelike and humanlike features suggests that the species is just old enough to be an ancestor of Homo erectus. If Berger's claims are proven A. sediba could be placed in the human family tree.

Other scientists are not so sure. The principal significance of the new fossils isn't that they could be direct ancestor of the human genus but that they show how rich the evolutionary chain really is in the australopithecine group, some say.

Dr. Bernard Wood of George Washington University scoffed at Berger's claim that the new fossils are direct ancestors of the human group saying there was too little time for the small-brained ape to evolve into Homo erectus.

"I think these are some of the most interesting papers that have been published in recent years," Wood said. "But these are probably not the reasons the authors think they are interesting."