Chimps, on the other hand, have much longer fingers and shorter thumbs, perfect for swinging in trees but much less handy for precision grasping. We have a relatively long thumb and shorter fingers, which allows us to touch our thumbs to any point along our fingers and thus easily grasp objects. Humans and chimps diverged from a common ancestor perhaps about 7 million years ago, and their hands now look very different. The findings have important implications for the origins of human toolmaking, as well as for what the ancestor of both humans and chimps might have looked like. But a new study suggests a radically different conclusion: Some aspects of the human hand are actually anatomically primitive-more so even than that of many other apes, including our evolutionary cousin the chimpanzee. Many scientists have assumed that our hands evolved their distinctive proportions over millions of years of recent evolution. It can thread a needle, coax intricate melodies from the keys of a piano, and create lasting works of art with a pen or a paintbrush.
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