Washington – Our hands can reveal a lot about how a person has lived, and that is true for the former. Human ancestorsalso.
Different activities, such as climbing, grabbing or hammering, stress in different parts of our fingers. In response to repeated stress, our bones tend to thickely in those areas.
Study how Ancient humans They used their hands, the scientists used 3D scanning to measure and analyze the bone thickness of the fingers.
They focused on fossil hands of two first species of human ancestors recovered from excavations in southern Africa, called Australopithecus Sediba and Homo Naledi. Individuals lived about 2 million years ago and about 300,000 years ago, respectively.
Both ancient human species showed signs of using their hands simultaneously to move, such as trees, as well as to understand and manipulate objects, a requirement to make tools.
“They probably walked on two feet and used their hands to manipulate objects or tools, but they also spent the time climbing and hanging,” perhaps in trees or cliffs, said the co -author of the study and paleoanthropologist Samar Syeda of the American Museum of Natural History.
The investigation was Posted on Wednesday in scientific advances.
The findings show that there was not a simple “function of evolution in the hand in which you start with more” ape “and you end more” human, “said Rick Potts, who did not participate in the study.
The full fossil hands are relatively rare, but the specimens used in the study gave the opportunity to understand the relative forces on each finger, said the paleontologist of the University of Chatham, Erin Marie Williams-Hatala, who did not participate in the study.
“The hands are one of the main ways in which we commit ourselves to the world around us,” he said.
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