Lucy's hands may have been capable of using tools 3.2 million years ago

[Still Waters]

Long before the first members of the Homo genus appeared on Earth, a group of ancient ape-like hominins called Australopithecines may have already developed the manual dexterity to use tools. Until now, anthropologists had assumed that these long-extinct creatures lacked the right hand shape for such complex tasks, yet a new analysis suggests that they were in fact capable of “power grasping” and “in-hand manipulation”.

The Australopithecines first hit the headlines half a century ago when researchers discovered a 3.2-million-year-old specimen belonging to the species Australopithecus afarensis, known to the world as Lucy. To determine the manual capabilities of these primordial hominids, the authors of the new study created 3D models of the muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones in the hands of three different Australopithecine species.

https://www.iflscience.com/lucys-hands-may-have-been-capable-of-using-tools-32-million-years-ago-76277

The study has been published in the Journal of Human Evolution.

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