Modeling study of ancient thumbs traces the history of hominin thumb dexterity – EurekAlert

Despite long-standing ideas about the importance of thumb evolution in tool use and development, questions remain about exactly when human-like manual dexterity and efficient thumb use arose–and which hominin species was the first to have this ability. Now, researchers who’ve analyzed the biomechanics and efficiency of the thumb across different fossil human species using virtual muscle modeling have new insight into when these abilities first arose and what they’ve meant for the development of…

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