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virus: Neanderthals Had Manual Dexterity
« on: 2003-03-26 16:45:58 » |
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Study: Neanderthals Had Manual Dexterity
Mar 26, 2:04 PM (ET)
By ALEX DOMINGUEZ
Neanderthals were not the ham-fisted cavemen often portrayed in
cartoons, but instead had at least as much dexterity as modern humans,
computer modeling of ancient hand bones shows.
The modeling suggests that the disappearance of Neanderthals cannot be
attributed solely to a physical inability to make tools as successfully
as their modern human cousins, researchers said.
Instead, the reason for the Neanderthals' demise seems to be more
complex, said Wesley Niewoehner, an anthropologist at California State
University-San Bernadino who developed the computer model. Results of
his comparisons appear in the current issue of the journal Nature.
Neanderthals had to compete for food and territory with fast-spreading
modern humans, who are believed to have been more adept at finding
resources and cooperating strategically. Other factors such as changing
climates also may have played a role.
There have also been questions about their ability to make tools.
"If you could write off Neanderthals as inferior, unable to make
precision grips and therefore unable to make precision tools, it would
be easier to explain what happened to them," Niewoehner said.
Neanderthal man, one of a number of types of early man that predated
modern humans, evolved in Europe and eventually covered an area ranging
from Spain to southern Russia and western Asia. The oldest fossils
attributed to Neanderthals are more than
350,000 years old.
They are believed to have vanished about 10,000 to 15,000 years after
modern man emerged from Africa and the Far East about
45,000 years ago.
The computer modeling on the Neanderthal hand was conducted with epoxy
casts of hand bones found in 1909 in La Ferrassie, France. The casts of
the thumb and index finger bones were scanned to produce
three-dimensional models, which were used to determine the range of
motion possible with the bone structure.
Scientists already knew Neanderthal man could make tools and must have
had good dexterity. The computer model confirms that "the Neanderthal
hand may have looked a bit different, but was not functionally
inferior," said Ian Tattersall, curator of the Division of Anthropology
at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Neanderthal hands were more heavily muscled than modern human hands,
with broad finger tips.
University of Pittsburgh anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz went one step
further than Niewoehner, saying Neanderthal man's grasp may have been
superior to the grip of modern human hands.
The popularized idea of Neanderthal man as caveman is wrong, said
Schwartz, who noted that the Neanderthal brain was as big as modern
man's, if not bigger.
"People tend to think of Neanderthals as less competent," Schwartz said.
"This really illustrates once again that Neanderthals were very
unique... rather than being more primitive."
--
Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
"No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how!"
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