neanderthals handier than previously thought

Do you think of Neanderthals as lumbering, slow, and clumsy? Think again, at least in regard to their hands. According to a report in the March 27 Nature, Neanderthals were as manually dextrous as modern humans. Neanderthals were previously thought unable to form the “precision grip” — where the tips of the thumb and index finger touch — necessary for fine manipulation. Researchers from California State University in San Bernardino created a 3-D computer simulation based on scans of Neanderthal hand bones to investigate their range of motion. Even allowing for a small range of joint movement by modern human standards, the simulation showed that Neanderthals could easily achieve the precision grip. Whatever reason the Neanderthals went extinct some 30,000 years ago, it “cannot be attributed to any physical inability to use or manufacture” the stone tools of that era, say the study’s authors.

This news brief appeared in the Random Data column of the Boston Globe’s Health/Science section on 4/01/2003.