Читать книгу Introducing Anthropology - Laura Pountney - Страница 30

Both humans and African apes have hands with a thumb that is sufficiently separate from the other fingers to allow them to be opposable for precision grip. Possession of an opposable thumb means that objects can be carried more easily and manipulated. There is considerable evidence to suggest that, by being able to throw and powerfully grip an object, early humans were better at protecting themselves from animals and other humans (Young 2003). The development of the opposable thumb, however, primarily helped humans to make tools, which was an essential advantage in human cultural evolution. But the mere presence of the opposable thumb does not explain why humans make sophisticated tools: if it did, then chimpanzees would make complex tools too (and they do not).

opposable thumb A thumb that is sufficiently separate from the other fingers of the hand to allow for precision grip

Figure 1.1 Hand of an African ape and of a human. (Denise Morgan for the University of Utah / Wikimedia Commons)