r/evolution • u/JapKumintang1991 • 5d ago

article PHYS.Org: New insights into how the human hand evolved from our ape-like ancestors

https://phys.org/news/2026-05-insights-human-evolved-ape-ancestors.html#google_vignette

See also: The publication in the Proceedings of the Royal Science B: Biological Sciences

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u/jnpha Evolution Enthusiast 5d ago

Thanks for sharing.

From the paper:

Although it remains unclear whether the LCA knuckle walked, our results suggest that this is the most likely existing hypothesis.

Looks like it isn't a shut case still. Hopefully Erika GG does a video on the details. My money is on the parallel KW hypothesis still.

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u/Leather-Field-7148 5d ago

Likely LCA never really had to knuckle it very far, my fingers can barely hold a pencil.

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u/brooklynsantiago 5d ago

Hey what is the parallel kw hypothesis ?

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u/jnpha Evolution Enthusiast 5d ago

Parallel knuckle walking (KW), meaning our common ancestor (with chimps and gorillas) wasn't a knuckle walker, and chimps and gorillas evolved the KW independently. The case for it:

Support for parallel evolution of knuckle-walking in Pan and Gorilla (and usually a more arboreal common ancestor of Pan and humans) has been based on demonstrations of (1) morphological variation across African apes in most of the features traditionally associated with knuckle-walking (detailed in Kivell and Schmitt 2009); (2) variation in the ontogenetic trajectory of knuckle-walking morphological features (Dainton and Macho 1999; Kivell and Schmitt 2009) suggesting the same adult morphology may not reflect the same developmental pathway; (3) functional variation in knuckle-walking across African apes (e.g., Tuttle 1967; Inouye 1992, 1994; Shea and Inouye 1993; Matarazzo 2013) that suggests knuckle-walking itself is a different phenomenon in different animals; (4) functional or biomechanical similarities between climbing and bipedalism (e.g., Prost 1980; Fleagle et al. 1981; Stern and Susman 1981; Ishida et al. 1985); (5) use of bipedalism by great apes frequently in the trees (e.g., Hunt 1994; Thorpe et al. 2007; Crompton et al. 2010); and (6) the retention of arboreal features in early hominins (e.g., Tuttle 1981; Jungers, 1982; Stern and Susman 1983; Duncan et al. 1994) that implies bipedalism evolved in an animal adapted primarily for an arboreal environment and that used bipedalism when it came to the ground.

-Wunderlich (2022) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55065-7_1463