News Humans

Most Neandertals were right-handers

So were their ancestors, according to fossil tooth clues

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

Right-handedness reaches back a half million years in the human evolutionary family, at least if scratched-up fossil teeth have anything to say about it.

HANDY SCRATCHES Under extreme magnification, stone-tool marks consistent with right-handedness appear on the surface of a 500,000-year-old hominid tooth, left. Most red-highlighted scratches on the outer surface of a 30,000-year-old Neandertal tooth, right, also signify right-handedness.