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.