Comparison between a Handaxe and a Clovis Point. Credit: Alastair Key and Metin Eren
Posted on 08/21/2018 3:03:11 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Research carried out at the University of Kent demonstrates that a technique used to produce stone tools that were first found half a million years ago is likely to have needed a modern human-like hand... This research is the first to link a stone tool production technique known as 'platform preparation' to the biology of human hands. Demonstrating that without the ability to perform highly forceful precision grips, our ancestors would not have been able to produce advanced types of stone tool like spear points. The technique involves preparing a striking area on a tool to remove specific stone flakes and shape the tool into a pre-conceived design. Platform preparation is essential for making many different types of advanced prehistoric stone tool, with the earliest known occurrence observed at the 500,000-year-old site of Boxgrove in West Sussex (UK)... Using sensors attached to the hand of skilled flint knappers (stone tool producers), the researchers were able to identify that platform preparation behaviours required the hand to exert significantly more pressure through the fingers when compared to all other stone tool activities studied. The research demonstrates that the Boxgrove hominins (early humans) would have needed significantly stronger grips compared to earlier populations who did not perform this behaviour. It further suggests that highly modified and shaped stone tools, such as the handaxes discovered at Boxgrove and stone spear points found in later prehistory, may not have been possible to produce until humans evolved the ability to perform particularly forceful grips. This discovery is particularly important because human hand bones rarely survive in the fossil record.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
Comparison between a Handaxe and a Clovis Point. Credit: Alastair Key and Metin Eren
Opposable thumbs. It’s as simple as that...
And from there, it took us 490,000 years to invent the Selfie Stick.
Top: Implementation by Indian coders: exactly meets specifications
Bottom: Implementation by American developers who asked "so, exactly what do you want to do with this thing?"
Sorry -- frustrating day with Indians but everyone who has worked with them must admit I am right.
Early man was doing his best to proliferate 500,000 years ago, but too many of them were getting stomped on by brontosauruses.
Opossum have opposable thumbs.
That doesn’t work. According to evolutionists, Bronto’s lived 150 million years ago, so weren’t around 500,000 years ago to stomp man.
If man was smart enough to make tools, and lived in communities, I don’t think anything could have stopped him.
It’s so easy a caveman could do it.
Quite, in fact.
Did the ancestors look like that Dr who got busted for dancing during surgeries?
>>If man had the ability to construct and grasp tools 500,000 years ago, he would have proliferated and the evidence of his existence would be overwhelming instead of rare.<<
Complete non sequitur.
You go back and time and say “complete non sequitur” to a tribe of men wielding stone tools. We’ll see who proliferates.
common core cavemen told those who tried making tools to quit ruining rocks and “trying to be something you’re not”.
Set the date to 500,000 years ago, Sherman!
Coordinates set... wait!
“And from there, it took us 490,000 years to invent the Selfie Stick.”
Hey, they were busy gripping something else...
Split finger fastball …??
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