3 ms·
Earliest 'modern' hand nearly two million years old
- andrewflnr 11y agoWait, why aren't our finger bones curved? If tool use nearly always involves wrapping our fingers around stuff, what produces the selection pressure towards straight fingers?
- codezero 11y agoBones as lever arms I assume.
- WalterBright 11y agoCan't point with curved fingers. (Pointing is an essential human trait.)
- DanBC 11y agoOur finger bones are curved on the palm side. Hand muscles are pretty strong. Climbers can support their weight on fingers. http://www.eatonhand.com/hw/facts.htm http://www.eatonhand.com/hw/facts.htm (Although that link does describe the finger spiral as following fibonacci so maybe it's all nonsense?)
- Gravityloss 11y agoIt's little known that they only started straightening in the 1900s, when typewriters appeared. (Just joking. I'm somewhat annoyed by the circulating snippets of wacky theories and false information.)