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Published online 6 February 2001 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news010208-7
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Early modern humans won hand over fist
Digital modelling suggests why Neanderthals lost their grip.
Nimble-fingered Neanderthals did not have the kind of gentle grip that allowed their cousins, the early modern humans, to capitalize on complex stone tools with handles, a new study of hominid hand bones reveals1.
Neanderthals, though stocky and well-muscled, were probably too ham-fisted to make effective use of advanced Stone Age technology or to perform dexterous tasks such as carving, Wesley Niewoehner, an anthropologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, calculates.
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