Fossils found in Kenya provide new details about what the hands of ancient hominids were like.
Scientists suggest that Paranthropus boisei was capable of making tools and had the strength of a gorilla.
BarcelonaWhat were the hands of ancient hominids like? And what could our ancestors have done with them? Analysis of fossils found in northern Kenya has shed some more light on these questions. These are the remains of a hand from Paranthropus boisei, one of the four species of hominids –along with theHomo habilis, heHomo rudolfensisand theHomo erectus– that coexisted in East Africa between 2 and 1 million years ago. Analysis of this primate's bones has revealed that it had grip strength similar to that of gorillas and tool-making skills similar to that of humans.
These are the conclusions of a study conducted by an international team led by Carrie Mongle of Stony Brook University in New York (USA). published this Wednesday in the magazine NatureThe bones studied, discovered during an excavation near Lake Turkana between 2019 and 2021, belong to a hominid dating back about 1.5 million years. According to the researchers, the morphology of its hand "converges with that of gorillas" in terms of "manual food processing" and a "powerful grip, such as that used in climbing." However, it also suggests that this ancient relative of humans already "had some capacity to make and use tools."
Until now, it was known that some hominids from the same period made and used stone tools, but the lack of fossils had made it difficult to determine whether this particular species had the necessary morphological characteristics. The hand and foot bones now presented are "unequivocally associated" with one Paranthropus boisei. Paleontologist Mary Leakey had already found a skull in 1959, which was discovered alongside stone artifacts.
"A completely unexpected discovery"
In an article related to the new evidence and also published in Nature, Tracy Kivell of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and Samar M. Syeda of the Museum of Natural History in New York, classify the hand bones of the Paranthropus boisei presented as a "completely unexpected discovery." "It is a rarity among the discoveries of fossils of extinct hominids," they emphasize in the article, reported by the Efe news agency, and add that it can serve to "reinterpret" other findings.
"Everything related to the hand of the Paranthropus boisei points to a great ability to grasp – whether of leafy vegetation, tools, rocks or branches – in a way that is unique among known hominid fossils," they emphasize. Until now, the researchers recall, it had been possible to determine that this species had a robust jaw with large molar teeth. difficult to process foods [...] that hominids with smaller teeth might not have been able to eat."
