PvE/Alamy
Our distant ancestors may have swung from branches and knuckle-walked like a chimpanzee – challenging recent thinking that the earliest hominins did neither. That is the conclusion of an analysis of 4.4-million-year-old
Ardipithecus ramidus, thought to be one of the earliest known hominins.
A.
ramidusthat was published in 2009. One well-preserved individual – nicknamed Ardi – had bones that suggested it typically walked along branches like a monkey rather than swinging below them like a chimp. This hinted that our last common ancestor with chimps also walked along branches, and that chimps evolved to swing and knuckle-walk after they branched off from hominins.
Your Thumb Is About 2 Million Years Old
The human thumb is a nimble wonder, allowing us to make tools, sew clothing, and open pickle jars. But just how and when this unique digit evolved has long been a mystery. Now, a new study modeling muscle in fossilized thumbs suggests about 2 million years ago, our ancient ancestors evolved a uniquely dexterous appendage while our other close relatives remained … all thumbs.
It’s a “thorough, robust analysis,” says Tracy Kivell, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Kent who was not involved with the work. But she and others caution that the research is too preliminary to provide a true smoking gun.
Charles Q. Choi, Contributor
(Inside Science) Ancient thumbs now suggest human-like manual dexterity may have begun emerging by about 2 million years ago, shedding new light on previous research concerning the rise of advanced tool use, a new study finds.
The ability to make and use complex tools depends not just on the extraordinarily powerful human brain, but also on the dexterity of the human hand. However, there has been a great deal of conflicting evidence surrounding when complex tools developed, when advanced manual dexterity arose, and in which group it first evolved the genus
Homo, which is the human lineage, or the genus
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Researchers used 3D modeling software to reconstruct a critical thumb muscle, the opponens pollicis (depicted here), in the fossils of ancient hominins. Katerina Harvati; Alexandros Karakostis; Daniel Haeufle
Your amazing thumb is about 2 million years old
Jan. 28, 2021 , 11:20 AM
The human thumb is a nimble wonder, allowing us to make tools, sew clothing, and open pickle jars. But just how and when this unique digit evolved has long been a mystery. Now, a new study modeling muscle in fossilized thumbs suggests about 2 million years ago, our ancient ancestors evolved a uniquely dexterous appendage while our other close relatives remained … all thumbs.
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.