• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Lucy’s Hands May Have Been Capable Of Using Tools 3.2 Million Years Ago

October 8, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Long before the first members of the Homo genus appeared on Earth, a group of ancient ape-like hominins called Australopithecines may have already developed the manual dexterity to use tools. Until now, anthropologists had assumed that these long-extinct creatures lacked the right hand shape for such complex tasks, yet a new analysis suggests that they were in fact capable of “power grasping” and “in-hand manipulation”.

The Australopithecines first hit the headlines half a century ago when researchers discovered a 3.2-million-year-old specimen belonging to the species Australopithecus afarensis, known to the world as Lucy. To determine the manual capabilities of these primordial hominids, the authors of the new study created 3D models of the muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones in the hands of three different Australopithecine species.

Advertisement

Beginning with Australopithecus sediba – which lived a little under two million years ago – the researchers found a pattern of muscle attachment that “suggests humanlike hand use, including power grasping, in-hand manipulation, and, potentially, tool use.” In particular, the intrinsic musculature of the creature’s pinky was found to be aligned with that of later Homo species, which relied heavily on this digit when producing and employing stone tools.

Given that A. sediba was among the last of the Australopithecines and co-existed with some human species, the study authors say they expected to observe certain similarities with our own lineage. Turning their attention to the considerably older A. afarensis, however, they find that Lucy’s hands probably displayed a mash-up of ape-like and human traits, with certain characteristics appearing more in line with those of gorillas, chimps, and orangutans.

Despite this, the species does appear to have had some degree of “habitual human-like hand use involving increased use of the fifth ray.” 

Previously, A. afarensis had been deemed incapable of producing stone tools and had therefore been ruled out as a possible creator of the Lomekwian industry, representing the oldest known tools on the planet. However, while the study authors stop short of attributing these ancient apparati to Lucy and co, they do suggest that the species may have been capable of producing rudimentary tools while also using their hands for ape-like locomotion in the trees (presumably not at the same time, though!).

Advertisement

A third and final model was then produced for Australopithecus africanus, which, like A. afarensis, displayed a mosaic of ape-like and human manual traits. However, the researchers were unable to determine the types of behaviors that this species would have been capable of.

“Overall, our results suggest that A. sediba and A. afarensis habitually performed a suite of manual activities that were similar (yet not identical) to the power-squeeze grasping and in-hand manipulation patterns seen in later Homo,” write the researchers. “These findings provide new evidence that some australopith species were already habitually engaging in humanlike manipulation, even if their manual dexterity was likely not as high as in later Homo.”

The study has been published in the Journal of Human Evolution.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. For migrants bound for U.S., a long wait in a Colombian beach town
  2. Cycling-Nibali returns to Astana after five years
  3. Germany’s SPD to open coalition talks with “kingmaker” parties
  4. New Record Set With 17 People In Earth Orbit At The Same Time

Source Link: Lucy's Hands May Have Been Capable Of Using Tools 3.2 Million Years Ago

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Watch This Funky Sea Pig Dancing Its Way Through The Deep Sea, Over 2,300 Meters Below The Surface
  • NASA Lets YouTuber Steve Mould Test His “Weird Chain Theory” In Space
  • The Oldest Stalagmite Ever Dated Was Found In Oklahoma Rocks, Dating Back 289 Million Years
  • 2024’s Great American Eclipse Made Some Birds Behave In Surprising Ways, But Not All Were Fooled
  • “Carter Catastrophe”: The Math Equation That Predicts The End Of Humanity
  • Why Is There No Nobel Prize For Mathematics?
  • These Are The Only Animals Known To Incubate Eggs In Their Stomachs And Give “Birth” Out Their Mouths
  • Constipated? This One Fruit Could Help, Says First-Ever Evidence-Led Diet Guidance
  • NGC 2775: This Galaxy Breaks The Rules Of “Galactic Evolution” And Baffles Astronomers
  • Meet The “Four-Eyed” Hirola, The World’s Most Endangered Antelope With Fewer Than 500 Left
  • The Bizarre 1997 Experiment That Made A Frog Levitate
  • There’s A Very Good Reason Why October 1582 On Your Phone Is Missing 10 Days
  • Skynet-1A: Military Spacecraft Launched 56 Years Ago Has Been Moved By Persons Unknown
  • There’s A Simple Solution To Helping Avoid Erectile Dysfunction (But You’re Not Going To Like It)
  • Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS May Be 10 Billion Years Old, This Rare Spider Is Half-Female, Half-Male Split Down The Middle, And Much More This Week
  • Why Do Trains Not Have Seatbelts? It’s Probably Not What You Think
  • World’s Driest Hot Desert Just Burst Into A Rare And Fleeting Desert Bloom
  • Theoretical Dark Matter Infernos Could Melt The Earth’s Core, Turning It Liquid
  • North America’s Largest Mammal Once Numbered 60 Million – Then Humans Nearly Drove It To Extinction
  • North America’s Largest Ever Land Animal Was A 21-Meter-Long Titan
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version