Earliest modern human-like hand bone from a new >1.84-million-year-old site at Olduvai in Tanzania.

ABSTRACT: Modern humans are characterized by specialized hand morphology that is associated with advanced manipulative skills. Thus, there is important debate in paleoanthropology about the possible cause-effect relationship of this modern human-like (MHL) hand anatomy, its associated grips and the invention and use of stone tools by early hominins. Here we describe and analyse Olduvai Hominin (OH) 86, a manual proximal phalanx from the recently discovered >1.84-million-year-old (Ma) Philip Tobias Korongo (PTK) site at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). OH 86 represents the earliest MHL hand bone in the fossil record, of a size and shape that differs not only from all australopiths, but also from the phalangeal bones of the penecontemporaneous and geographically proximate OH 7 partial hand skeleton (part of

SUBMITTER: Dominguez-Rodrigo M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4557276 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature