A recent study says that there is a link between the stone age tools and human hands in a way that the modern human-like hands are actually involved in making the tools. The researchers suggest that the the forceful grips were used otherwise our ancestors would not have produced advanced types of stone tools like spear points.
The technique, known as ‘platform preparation, involves designing a striking area on a tool to remove specific stone flakes and shape the tool into a pre-conceived design.
‘Platform preparation’ is essential for making many different types of advanced prehistoric stone tool, with the earliest known occurrence observed at the 500,000-year-old site of Boxgrove in West Sussex (UK).
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The study investigated how hands were used during the production of different types of early stone technology. The research demonstrates that the early humans would have needed significantly stronger grips compared to earlier populations, who did not perform this behaviour.
Researchers further suggested that highly modified and shaped stone tools, such as the handaxes discovered at Boxgrove and stone spear points found in later prehistory, may not have been possible to produce until humans evolved the ability to perform particularly forceful grips. The full findings appeared in the journal- PeerJ.