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The Hominids (all representatives of the human lineage) share a common ancestor with the Chimpanzees, their sister group.
Toumaï displays a unique combination of facial, dental (canine) and basicranial characters that clearly supports closer relationships with the human lineage than with Chimpanzees or Gorillas.
His great antiquity (around 7 Myrs) and all his anatomic characters suggest together a close relationship to the last common ancestor between Humans and Chimpanzees. This implies a probably earlier chimpanzee-human divergence (at least as early as 7 millions years ago) than previously indicated by most of the molecular studies.
Toumaï's canines are more primitive than in Ardipithecus (4.4 - 5.8 Myrs) of whom he could be the ancestor.
Comparisons with Orrorin (6 Myrs) are difficult because of the fragmentary condition of the available cranio-dental material of the latter. However, Orrorin and Toumaï are quite distinct, upper canine of the former being more similar to those of a female chimpanzee.
Toumaï, the earliest known hominid, could be considerate as the ancestor of all later hominids, i.e. as the ancestor of the human lineage.
