A little treasure: the skeleton of the world's oldest child is found.

Researchers call her Selam, or "peace." The skull and skeletal remains of the 3-year-old were found in an area of Ethiopia called Dikika (see map). The oldest child ever found, Selam is thought to have drowned in a flash flood 3.3 million years ago.

"A cheekbone was sticking out of the sand," said one of the scientists who discovered Selam's remains in a hardened river bed.

The find is important because it allows scientists to study the nearly complete remains of an ancient ancestor of humans for the first time.

"It's very unusual to find something this young, this complete," said scientist Tim White of the University of California at Berkeley. "So when you get that, you say, 'Eureka!'"

Scientists discovered Selam's fossilized skull and skeleton in December 2000. But it took them five years to remove her tiny bones from the sandstone in which they were embedded.

There is still work to do. Several more years will be needed to remove and analyze the remains completely.

Experts believe that Selam belonged to a prehistoric human species that had features similar to those of an ape. The species, known as Australopithecus afarensis, had legs and could walk upright, but its shoulder blades and neck were like those of a young gorilla.

Selam's fossil also revealed curved fingers, which means that her species may have climbed trees.