![]() Thus, researchers are generally forced to focus their interpretation and understanding of the evolution of human manipulative behaviours on fossilized hand anatomy, especially in the earliest stages of human evolution (e.g. However, evidence of the modification and use of organic materials as tools either does not preserve in the fossil record or is not recognizable as tools. Comparative extant primate studies, showing a dominance of using organic plants as tools in New and Old World monkeys and hominoids, suggests that the modification of plants and tool use were behaviours probably present in the last common ancestor of humans and Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos), and potentially evolved multiple times in extinct fossil primates and hominins. Inferences about manipulative ability and potential tool-related behaviours in the earliest hominins must rely largely on morphological fossil evidence. In particular, recent, relatively complete fossil hominin hand skeletons and archaeological discoveries have added greatly to the growing group of palaeoanthropologists and archaeologists open to the idea that enhanced manual dexterity and tool-related behaviours have been a part of our evolutionary history for much longer than traditionally believed (see also ). However, a growing wealth of palaeontological, archaeological and comparative primate evidence makes clear that Washburn's assertion that pre- Homo ‘ape-men’ were making and using tools still holds true today. In the decades following, tool use and tool making were largely considered to be an ability limited to (and, indeed, used to define) the genus Homo (see for a review). Only a few months later the remains of Homo habilis Olduvai Hominid (OH) 7 were discovered and quickly deemed the maker of these stone tools, while Zinjanthropus was considered likely to be the prey instead. Washburn's (see also ) declaration referred to the contemporary discoveries by the Leakey family of the robust australopith skull of ‘ Zinjanthropus boisei’ in association with a living floor of Oldowan stone tools. ‘Now it appears that man-apes-creatures able to run… and with brains no larger than those of apes now living-had already learned to make and to use tools’.
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