Posted on 04/21/2011 7:58:26 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
David Frayer, professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas, has used markings on fossilized front teeth to show that right-handedness goes back more than 500,000 years... His research shows that distinctive markings on fossilized teeth correlate to the right or left-handedness of individual prehistoric humans... The oldest teeth come from a more than 500,000-year-old chamber known as Sima de los Huesos near Burgos, Spain, containing the remains of humans believed to be ancestors of European Neandertals. Other teeth studied by Frayer come from later Neandertal populations in Europe...
Overall, Frayer and his co-authors found right-handedness in 93.1 percent of individuals sampled from the Sima de los Huesos and European Neandertal sites.
"It is difficult to interpret these fossil data in any way other than that laterality was established early in European fossil record and continued through the Neandertals," said Frayer. "This establishes that handedness is found in more than just recent Homo sapiens."
Frayer said that his findings on right-handedness have implications for understanding the language capacity of ancient populations, because language is primarily located on the left side of the brain, which controls the right side of the body, there is a right handedness-language connection.
"The general correlation between handedness and brain laterality shows that human brains were lateralized in a 'modern' way by at least half a million years ago and the pattern has not changed since then," he said. "There is no reason to suspect this pattern does not extend deeper into the past and that language has ancient, not recent, roots."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.ku.edu ...
ok, what came first? Righthandedness or a right to left curve in a certain part of the male anatomy???
“They say lefties have greater spatial awareness over right-handed people.”
I worked with a great many very brilliant engineers, and it was amazing how many of them were left-handed. I was the stupid righty. I was also the go-to for proof-reading and editing papers. Interesting.
I wonder what effect on brain patterns this change in hand usage had on our parents.
Reread after a good night’s sleep and a few cups of coffee and it makes sense! :) My husband’s family has some lefties, altho none of my kids (nor my hubby) are lefties. My sister in law is very ambidexterous, which is really handy. I am barely dexterous, on the other hand. ;)
I guess changing handedness wasn’t universal. My FIL was a lefty and he was born in 1923. I wonder if some places were not doing that, or some kids just ignored them (he was pretty feisty) or if it was regional?
Hey, I won’t touch that debate with a, uh, never mind.
This is pretty interesting.
LOL!
Thanks. I thought you would like the tie in.
Left-handed kitties, they’re everywhere!
Luckily they don’t have much to say anyway.
[ow! ow! ouch! yeeouch!]
Left handed tom cats. They come from the land of ice and snow!
Since he was born in 1923, post-WWI, your FIL would have been learning to write around 1929, when, I would think, educators had become more enlightened about handedness. My father would have started school around 1917 with teachers of a different world view.
Ten foot pole? In your dreams.
Ah, maybe that’s why. I never asked him about it.
I have to be careful what I dream, else I could give myself a black eye. Water’s cold. And deep.
Good one—just in case no one else noticed!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.