Interesting theory to discuss over a couple of beers 🙂
Human hands are shorter and boxier than our ape relatives, and our thumbs are proportionally longer in relation to the other fingers. This gives us the unique ability to not only manipulate tools with fine precision, but also form a fist. We’re the only animals that can.
We are the only animals with fists.
“Human-like hand proportions appear in the fossil record at the same time our ancestors started walking upright 4 million to 5 million years ago,” Carriersaid in a press release in 2012. Although the most commonly accepted theory is that we stood upright and developed opposable thumbs so we could use tools, “[a]n alternative possible explanation is that we stood up on two legs and evolved these hand proportions to beat each other,” said Carrier.
The trouble is, it’s damn near impossible to determine whether our opposable thumbs evolved first and then we figured out how to make an effective fist, or whether our hands evolved for the express purpose of fighting.
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