Xinhua selects world pictures of the year 2019

Photo taken on Aug. 8, 2019 shows French paleontologist Michel Brunet at his office in Paris, France. In July 2001, a Franco-Chadian team headed by French paleontologist Michel Brunet unearthed a fossil cranium in the Chadian Djurab Desert. Nicknamed Toumai ("hope of life" in the local Daza language, Dazaga, also known as Goran), the fossil skull, also known as Sahelanthropus tchadensis, has been described by some as the earliest forebear ever found of humanity. (Xinhua/Gao Jing)