Are the oldest, ‘modern hand’ of more than 1.8 million years – Daily Mail

 A team of scientists led by Spanish, has been found in Africa fossils of modern hand – as the oldest ours from that record be had, dating from over 1.84 million years.

 The evolution of the hand is vital to understand how we became human.

 The fossils were found in the Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) and belong to a phalanx of the little finger of the left hand of a man who measured between 1.70 and 1.80 meters .

 Is a modern hand, ie, belonged to an “exclusively terrestrial” individual , which did not use his hands to climb in the trees, told Efe Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, Institute of Evolution Africa (Madrid) and director of the research, published in the journal Nature Communications.

 Bipedal hominids became about 6 million years ago, continued the researcher.

 During the first four million years, all the hominids were characterized by a mixed pattern: climbed trees and were bipedal on the ground, hence their hands have a double function, manipulation and locomotion in trees

 When the hands were freed from the arboreal locomotion, appearance changed to adapt and to become “specialists handling stringent” , said Domínguez-Rodrigo.

 “Our hand evolved, enabling a variety of grips and pressor enough force to allow the widest range of manipulations,” he said.

 “It is precisely this ability of handling which interacted with the brain to the development of our intelligence through the invention and use of tools” (the first are 2.6 million years ago, found in Gona, Ethiopia).

 Our hand changed: modified thumbs, toes or phalanges widened straightened

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 Precisely the latter trait developed only once abandoned arboreal life, which until this study, the researchers had established that happened about 1.5 billion years ago and that was the center of Homo erectus.

 However, this new study provides the hands of these “modern” features have a length of at least 1.84 million years.

 “Our findings not only show that 1.84 million years ago there was already a creature with one hand modern features but also that this creature was larger than any previous or contemporary to that hominid species”.

 And what kind belonged the individual hand found? “We’re not sure, because we lack teeth, is risky, according to Domínguez-Rodrigo, adding that they do know the species that did not belong: Homo habilis and Paranthropus boisei

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 And is that fossils of the hand described now are very different to those found in the hands of these two species.

 According to this work, also signed by US scientists, the characteristics of the new individual fit “very well” with those of Homo erectus in Africa could coexist with the other two species.

 So far the fossil remains of Homo erectus in Africa identified dated to 1.5 million years; these are almost 400,000 years older, he told the Spanish researcher, who nevertheless said the study can not rule out trying to call a creature yet that closely resembled Homo erectus.

 In recent years researchers have gathered evidence about the Olduvai site was a central place where hominids carrying cases up to 350 kilograms obtained by hunting, but had always doubted, at least Dominguez, Homo habilis could do (measuring a meter).

 This work is an explanation for this: the site inhabited it a bigger and much more modern creature. EFE