Right-handedness dominant for 500,000 years Published on April
21st, 2011 | by Sevaan Franks0 The oldest teeth come from a more
than 500,000-year-old chamber known as Sima de los Huesos near
Burgos, Spain, containing the remains of humans believed to be
ancestors of European Neandertals. Other teeth studied by Frayer
come from later Neandertal populations in Europe. “These marks
were produced when a stone tool was accidentally dragged across
the labial face in an activity performed at the front of the
mouth,” said Frayer. “The heavy scoring on some of the teeth
indicates the marks were produced over the lifetime of the
individual and are not the result of a single cutting episode.”
Overall, Frayer and his co-authors found right-handedness in
93.1 percent of individuals sampled from the Sima de los Huesos
and European Neandertal sites. Story: Brendan M. Lunch,
University of Kansas | Photo: University of Kansas, Department
of Anthropology