Give the thumb a big "thumb's up!"
Gassho, J
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Thumbs gave human ancestors a 'formidable' advantage
Whether we're texting or using tools, our hands -- perhaps more than any other body part -- are what equip us for modern life.
The killer app in the evolution of our hands was our opposable thumbs, which allow humans to precisely hold tiny things between our fingertips and pad of our thumb.
When did we first get this unusual manual dexterity?
It had been thought, based on comparisons of fossilized bones to modern human skeletons, that it may have emerged more than 3 million years ago when our earliest ancestors -- the australopithecines such as the famous fossil Lucy -- started using basic stone tools.
A new approach to this question, however, suggests that while early hominins may have been dexterous, they did not have the powerful thumb typical of humans today until later, about 2 million years ago. It was at this time an early species of humans first left Africa, and our dexterity could have been the driving force behind a more complex human culture that emerged then.
"Increased manual dexterity in the form of efficient thumb opposition was among the early defining characteristics of our lineage, providing a formidable adaptive advantage to our ancestors," said paleoanthropologist Katerina Harvati, a professor at Eberhard Karls University ... in Germany and lead author of a new study that published in the journal Current Biology.
"It is likely a crucial element underlying the development of complex culture over the last 2 million years, shaping our biocultural evolution."
https://us.cnn.com/2021/01/28/world/...scn/index.html
Whether we're texting or using tools, our hands -- perhaps more than any other body part -- are what equip us for modern life.
The killer app in the evolution of our hands was our opposable thumbs, which allow humans to precisely hold tiny things between our fingertips and pad of our thumb.
When did we first get this unusual manual dexterity?
It had been thought, based on comparisons of fossilized bones to modern human skeletons, that it may have emerged more than 3 million years ago when our earliest ancestors -- the australopithecines such as the famous fossil Lucy -- started using basic stone tools.
A new approach to this question, however, suggests that while early hominins may have been dexterous, they did not have the powerful thumb typical of humans today until later, about 2 million years ago. It was at this time an early species of humans first left Africa, and our dexterity could have been the driving force behind a more complex human culture that emerged then.
"Increased manual dexterity in the form of efficient thumb opposition was among the early defining characteristics of our lineage, providing a formidable adaptive advantage to our ancestors," said paleoanthropologist Katerina Harvati, a professor at Eberhard Karls University ... in Germany and lead author of a new study that published in the journal Current Biology.
"It is likely a crucial element underlying the development of complex culture over the last 2 million years, shaping our biocultural evolution."
https://us.cnn.com/2021/01/28/world/...scn/index.html
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