Scientists think they’ve cracked the mystery of human right-handedness
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- Oxford study analyzed 2,025 primates from 41 species using Bayesian phylogenetic modeling to investigate handedness.
- Bipedalism and brain expansion emerged as the only traits that, when included, removed humans' statistical outlier status in handedness.
- Early hominins (Ardipithecus, Australopithecus) likely displayed only mild right-hand preference, whereas Homo species (Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Neanderthals) showed increasingly strong right-hand bias.
- PLOS Biology published the research led by Dr. Thomas A. Püschel, Rachel M. Hurwitz (Oxford) and Prof. Chris Venditti (Reading).
- Human population shows about 90% right‑handedness, a level unparalleled among primates.
Why it matters: Neuroscientists and anthropologists gain a 90%‑based evolutionary model linking bipedalism and brain expansion to handedness, sharpening future research on brain lateralization and potentially improving ergonomics and motor‑disorder treatments.
