Earliest 'modern' hand nearly two million years old

_Tombstone_

1.8 million year old Pinkie.

The find, reported in Nature Communications, will fuel ongoing debate as to which of our distant relatives—Homo habilis? Homo erectus?—might have been the first to make stone implements and weapons.

"Our discovery not only shows that a creature"—dubbed OH 86—"with a modern-looking hand existed 1.85 million years ago, it also shows that OH 86 was bigger sized than any other prior and contemporary hominin," said Dominguez-Rodrigo.

http://phys.org/news/2015-08-earliest-modern-million-years.html

Wibbs

Great discovery, but IMHO a single finger bone is slim pickings to build so many conclusions from*.






*unless as was the case with the Denisovan example extractable DNA is present.

Poor Uncle Tom

Wibbs wrote: »

*unless as was the case with the Denisovan example extractable DNA is present.

After 1.8m years?

That would be deadly, the ultimate pathology

Ice Age is actually an historical document for The Pleistocene Era...:D

Fathom

Little finger. Fascinating anatomical & conceptual reconstruction.