{"id":5221,"date":"2024-01-31T10:08:23","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T03:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/?p=5221"},"modified":"2024-01-31T10:08:23","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T03:08:23","slug":"how-humans-became-mostly-right-handed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/how-humans-became-mostly-right-handed\/","title":{"rendered":"How Humans Became (Mostly) Right-Handed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>TLDR<\/strong>: Evidence from Neanderthal teeth and cave paintings reveals most humans and ancestors were right-handed, linked to brain lateralization and tool use, with left-handedness offering unique advantages.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This article is a summary of a You Tube video &#8220;How Humans Became (Mostly) Right-Handed&#8221; by PBS Eons<br \/>\n<iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vb11oOHYNXM?si=BqfIIBfMW2ne4-Ys\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Key Takeaways:<\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Most Neanderthals were right-handed<\/strong>, similar to the majority of Homo sapiens, with evidence from teeth scratches indicating a long-standing preference for the right hand in human lineage.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Human handedness is more of a spectrum<\/strong>, with some people being strongly right or left-handed and others falling somewhere in between.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Handedness is linked to brain lateralization<\/strong>, where different cognitive processes take place in different parts of the brain, contributing to the preference for using one hand over another.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Evidence of right-handedness dates back millions of years<\/strong>, with cave paintings and fossilized teeth scratches indicating that our ancestors preferred using their right hand.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hand preference is observable in the human skeleton<\/strong>, where the dominant arm exhibits thicker bone density due to repeated use.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Right-handedness may have evolutionary advantages<\/strong>, including better coordination, memory, and verbal skills, and might offer a competitive edge in physical combat, especially among left-handed individuals.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Handedness could be partially heritable<\/strong>, with genetics playing a role, though no single &#8220;handedness gene&#8221; has been identified. It&#8217;s suggested that several genes might have minor effects.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The development of tool use and bipedalism (walking upright)<\/strong> are significant factors in the evolution of hand preference, with implications for the favoring of the right hand across hominin species.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Left-handedness, while less common, may have emerged as a beneficial trait<\/strong> in certain contexts, such as physical combat, where lefties can have the element of surprise.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The phenomenon of handedness illustrates the complexity and variability of human traits<\/strong>, showing that there&#8217;s no single &#8220;right&#8221; way to be human, with each variation offering its own set of advantages.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Evidence from Neanderthal teeth and cave paintings reveals most humans and ancestors were right-handed, linked to brain lateralization and tool use, with left-handedness offering unique advantages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-44","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5223,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5221\/revisions\/5223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}