Fossil evidence for early hominid tool use.
Fossil evidence for early hominid tool use.
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DOI：
10.1126/science.8079169
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发表时间：
1994-09
期刊：
影响因子：
56.9
通讯作者：
R. L. Susman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
R. L. Susman
虽然有几个上新世-更新世的原始人被发现与石器和骨制工具有关，但人们普遍认为，在任何时候，拥有最大大脑的原始人都是工具制造者。过去十年中发现的化石表明，250万年前以后的早期原始人都可能使用工具，并占据“文化”壁龛。提出了一种类似人类的精确抓取（操纵工具的增强能力）的测试，并应用于南方古猿和早期人属。结果表明，在大约200万年前，所有早期原始人都可能使用工具。最早的南方古猿，在考古记录中出现石器之前，没有显示出先进的精确抓取的迹象。
Although several Plio-Pleistocene hominids are found in association with stone and bone tools, it has been generally assumed that at any one time the hominid with the largest brain was the toolmaker. Fossils recovered over the last decade suggest that early hominids subsequent to 2.5 million years ago all might have used tools and occupied "cultural" niches. A test for humanlike precision grasping (the enhanced ability to manipulate tools) is proposed and applied to australopithecines and early Homo. The results indicate that tools were likely to have been used by all early hominids at around 2.0 million years ago. The earliest australopithecines, which predate the appearance of stone tools in the archaeological record, do not show signs of advanced precision grasping.