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Coffee!!: Right-handedness goes back half a million years

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courtesy University of Kansas

Yes, righties predominated overwhelmingly even back then. Or longer? (ScienceDaily, Apr. 19, 2011):

Now, David Frayer, professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas, has used markings on fossilized front teeth to show that right-handedness goes back more than 500,000 years. He is the lead author (with colleagues in Croatia, Italy and Spain) of a paper published this month in the British journal Laterality. His research shows that distinctive markings on fossilized teeth correlate to the right or left-handedness of individual prehistoric humans.

“The patterns seen on the fossil teeth are directly and consistently produced by right or left hand manipulation in experimental work,” Frayer said.

There are some issues around handedness, especially the putative problems of left-handed or ambidextrous people. One difficulty is that because most human are right-handed, “right” tends to mean good or dexterous but “left” tends to mean bad or sinister. And “ambidextrous” easily translates to: ambivalent.

Growing up with this can be a source of problems apart from any lack of function.

Question: Has anyone ever noticed that women who claim they are “absolutely, totally” right-handed  manage to put nail polish on their right hands quite accurately?

(Note: Lefty wrote this post, and Ambie edited it. – UD news staff)

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