科學60秒:古歐洲人都是“右撇子”
來源：滬江聽寫酷
2011-08-07 10:00
When it comes to handedness, righties rule.And according to a new study, they have for a long time.Because even half a million years ago, nine out of 10 European humans _____1_____ their right hands.The finding appears in the journal Laterality.
Scientists have long wondered where our handedness comes from.All other tool-using primates show no _____2_____ hand preference when it comes to holding the stick or stone.
But have humans always been so heavily _____3_____?Some scientists had previously detected a right-hand bias when they looked at the flaking patterns on ancient stone tools.
In this study, researchers turned to the teeth for answers.They analyzed the scratches accidentally left by stone tools on teeth from human fossils collected from a half-million-year-old site in northern Spain and later sites throughout Europe.These asymmetrical marks showed that 93 percent of the individuals sampled tended to _____4_____ in their mouths from the right-hand side.
Handedness reflects our brain’s bilateral organization, which goes hand-in-hand with our proficiency with language.So our hand preference, and our penchant for speech, may _____5_____ our evolutionary past.
【視聽版科學小組榮譽出品】
Scientists have long wondered where our handedness comes from.All other tool-using primates show no _____2_____ hand preference when it comes to holding the stick or stone.
But have humans always been so heavily _____3_____?Some scientists had previously detected a right-hand bias when they looked at the flaking patterns on ancient stone tools.
In this study, researchers turned to the teeth for answers.They analyzed the scratches accidentally left by stone tools on teeth from human fossils collected from a half-million-year-old site in northern Spain and later sites throughout Europe.These asymmetrical marks showed that 93 percent of the individuals sampled tended to _____4_____ in their mouths from the right-hand side.
Handedness reflects our brain’s bilateral organization, which goes hand-in-hand with our proficiency with language.So our hand preference, and our penchant for speech, may _____5_____ our evolutionary past.
【視聽版科學小組榮譽出品】
favored
distinct
right-handed
stuff things
extend deep into
古歐洲人都是“右撇子”
在習慣使用左手還是右手的問題上，右手占多數(shù)。最新研究證明，人們從很久以前就有用右手多過左手的習慣了。因為甚至在五十萬年前，十個歐洲人中就有九個更喜歡用右手。此發(fā)現(xiàn)發(fā)表在《側(cè)性》期刊上。
科學家們很久以來一直不明白我們用手習慣的由來。當手持棍棒或石頭時，所有其他使用工具的靈長類動物并沒有明顯表現(xiàn)出對用手的偏好。
不過，是否人類一直都如此偏愛右手呢？一些科學家曾從古代石器工具的切削痕跡中發(fā)現(xiàn)人類對右手的偏愛。
在這項研究中，研究人員轉(zhuǎn)而從牙齒上尋求答案。他們分析了來自西班牙北部五十萬年前以及歐洲各地更晚些的遺址的人類牙齒化石，其上有由石器偶然留下的劃痕。這些不均勻的跡象表明，調(diào)查中有93%的人在進食時是從右手邊將東西塞進嘴里的。
用手習慣反映了我們大腦左右兩邊的結(jié)構(gòu)，與我們對語言的精通息息相關(guān)。所以我們的用手偏好以及說話方式的傾向，可能早早就根植于我們的進化史中了。