Hand grasping and finger flexion during Lower Paleolithic stone tool ergonomic exploration
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(2020) 12:254
ORIGINAL PAPER
Hand grasping and finger flexion during Lower Paleolithic stone tool ergonomic exploration Annapaola Fedato 1
&
María Silva-Gago 1 & Marcos Terradillos-Bernal 2 & Rodrigo Alonso-Alcalde 3 & Emiliano Bruner 1
Received: 27 April 2020 / Accepted: 1 September 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Lower Paleolithic stone tool features and shape have been studied in detail; traceology and experimental archaeology have provided us with a lot of information about possible tool use and functionality. The way modern humans use these tools has been used as a proxy for the study of early stone tool-makers’ behavior, taking into account that our ancestors could have had similar manipulative capabilities to us. Less importance has been given to stone tool ergonomics, even if comfortable and ergonomic grasping prevent hand damage and improve tool use. Here, we measured the phalanx flexion of 82 subjects during comfortable stone tool handling for both Oldowan pebble tools and Acheulean handaxes. We expected differences in the pattern of phalanx flexion in the two tool types and in relation with tool dimensions. In fact, Oldowan pebble tools and handaxes show differences in finger flexion and in the single finger contribution to comfortable grasping. Keywords Oldowan . Acheulean . Haptics . Ergonomics . Tool manipulation
Introduction Systematic stone tool use is an essential component of human behavior, and it is generally used to define the genus Homo (Ambrose 2001). Selective forces associated with this capacity could influence biological factors and parameters, such as hand anatomy and the musculature associated with effective tool manipulation (Young 2003; Marzke 2013; WilliamsHatala et al. 2018). Functional skills are related to hand morphology (Hu et al. 2018), and handedness requires specific anatomical structures as well as a proper neural control system (Wing et al. 1996). The study of the human hand hence requires an understanding of both sensory and mechanical features (Taylor and Schwarz 1955). From a morphological point of view, when compared with other apes, humans have shorter fingers relative to the thumb, shorter and less curved phalanges, and a specialized wrist allowing first tool users to develop * Annapaola Fedato [email protected] 1
Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana, Paseo Sierra de Atapuerca 3, 09002 Burgos, Spain
2
Universidad Internacional Isabel I de Castilla, Burgos, Spain
3
Museo de la Evolución Humana, Burgos, Spain
precision grips (Napier 1956; Marzke 1997; Kivell 2015). In particular, the human-specific thumb/index length proportion is a characteristic that is thought to provide greater control during precision handling (Feix et al. 2015). The first evidence of tool use in hominins dates back to 3.3 Ma (Harmand et al. 2015). However, only after 2.6 Ma, with the Oldowan technology, early humans were able to produce sequential flakes and perform systematic flake removal (Braun et al. 2019). S
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