German scientists from the University of Tübingen found that some species of australopithecines could use tools. This is indicated by the anatomy of their hands, which is close to the structure of the hands of modern people. The study was published in the scientific publication Journal of Human Evolution (JHE).
The team compared muscle insertions on the arms of three species of australopithecines: A. afarensis, A. africanus and A. sediba. The analysis was carried out using modern human, Neanderthal, gorilla, chimpanzee and orangutan hand models to study biomechanics in detail.
The studied species of Australopithecus lived in Africa from 3.9 million to 1.8 million years ago.
The results showed that A. sediba and A. afarensis possessed muscle attachment patterns that suggest they had an anatomical basis for human-like manipulation activities.
This implies that these species were engaged in tasks such as forceful grasping and manipulating objects in the hand required for tool use.
A. africanus exhibited a combination of attachment features indicative of both human and simian hand use. This mosaic pattern suggests the universality of manual behavior, potentially driven by tool-related activities.
The oldest stone tools ever found date back to approximately 3.3 million years ago. However, it has not yet been possible to establish exactly who exactly used them, the scientists noted.
