科学60秒:古欧洲人都是“右撇子”
来源：沪江听写酷
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.
【视听版科学小组荣誉出品】
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.
【视听版科学小组荣誉出品】
favored
distinct
right-handed
stuff things
extend deep into
古欧洲人都是“右撇子”
在习惯使用左手还是右手的问题上，右手占多数。最新研究证明，人们从很久以前就有用右手多过左手的习惯了。因为甚至在五十万年前，十个欧洲人中就有九个更喜欢用右手。此发现发表在《侧性》期刊上。
科学家们很久以来一直不明白我们用手习惯的由来。当手持棍棒或石头时，所有其他使用工具的灵长类动物并没有明显表现出对用手的偏好。
不过，是否人类一直都如此偏爱右手呢？一些科学家曾从古代石器工具的切削痕迹中发现人类对右手的偏爱。
在这项研究中，研究人员转而从牙齿上寻求答案。他们分析了来自西班牙北部五十万年前以及欧洲各地更晚些的遗址的人类牙齿化石，其上有由石器偶然留下的划痕。这些不均匀的迹象表明，调查中有93%的人在进食时是从右手边将东西塞进嘴里的。
用手习惯反映了我们大脑左右两边的结构，与我们对语言的精通息息相关。所以我们的用手偏好以及说话方式的倾向，可能早早就根植于我们的进化史中了。
