How Humans Became (Mostly) Right-Handed

Some commenters have pointed out that we say "after our lineage split with chimpanzees," "members of our lineage after the split with chimpanzees," and "after our split from chimpanzees" at various points in this episode. Just to clear things up, humans and our extinct relatives share a common ancestor with chimpanzees and their extinct relatives. After our lineage split from this common ancestor, we call our group "hominins." Living chimpanzees also have their own separate evolutionary history since that shared common ancestor.

All samurai were right handed.
If any ever existed they likely were cut down too early in their careers to have earned any notoriety.
When you think about how swords were carried, which side of paths that japanese walk on, and the movements of kenjutsu and iaido, a lefty would have a distinct disadvantage when attacking or defending from the draw.

So lefties are the next step in the evolutionary ladder. I knew it.

Im not convinced that scientists can say with any certainty that those scratches on the teeth are caused definitively by an ancient homonid slipping and scratching their teeth with a sharp tool while holding the end of an animal hide in their mouth. Seems oddly specific and a bit of a reach in my books.
What proof do they have other than just marks on teeth?

So you are saying there are more right wingers than left wingers

I have noticed my cat is right pawed

The world was built for right handed people thats why there are more right handed people.

Its funny about this left side tool use center. I thought about our speech center at the beginning of the video and wondered if that had something to do with it. Most things we learn we are told verbally how to do so it might be easiest for the brain to use the hand connected to the half that process language.

Lefty, checking in.

When I swing a tennis racket (one hand) I’m right handed but when I swing a golf club (two hands) I’m left side

Horses tend to be left sided. Like 80 + %.

This is fantastic

My Lil brother and I are lefties! I like being different

Left handedness is strongly associated with a whole bunch of psychological probs and learning issues

I throw a baseball with my right hand and bowling with my left hand .

I had also learned about handedness and distribution of language function having a correlative relationship. Interesting topic!

Im left-handed, only troubles i had was in army since the weapons were made for righthands , bullet ejection was facing in so i kept burning my righthand with bullet casings

Side point. Some land crabs have large right claws while a few have both that are small. We call those left hand crabs.

I’m left handed and in school we didn’t have lefty scissors so I had to teach my self to use my right hand. Now as an adult I can’t use scissors with my left hand. I also had to use a righty mitt when we played baseball so I throw with my right most of the time .

I'm confuse
I can't do some job on my right but i do a lot of this with my left hand but i write with my right hand

Most parrots are left footed.

Otters are actually mainly right handed as well!

so before becoming right handed what were we??? left handed?? lmao

and if we were left handed before becoming right handed what were we before that??? 😎

The Only thing I do with my left is write. Nothing else. I’m even right eye dominant.

That was insightful, thanks

I love science like this.

It's interesting to see what could have lead to our ever evolving selves. 😱🤔

What if one of our ancient ancestors got hurt, had an injury on the right arm/hand/wrist and then had to learn how to do day to day tasks with the left side. Therefore ‘favouring’ the left side and becoming left handed. Then as they teach/pass down the skills to the next generation, the next generation would copy what the ‘left handed’ hominin was doing.

If that makes sense 😅

Thanks for India 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳

I am ambidextrous. Was trained in school to prefer my right. Never made much of a difference though. I do everything equally with both. I write sloppy with both too. 🤣 interestingly enough 3 of my 4 children are righties. My eldest daughter is my one leftie. 👍🏼

Lefties forehand is just as good as anyone's
However their back hand is trained against our forehand; so it practically becomes as good if not better than their forehand.
no one person should have that much power!

"There's no right way to be human." I love that so much. Super meaningful quote I think a lot of people need to hear.

Thanks for the video!

Left handed girl here, it was so hard for people to teach me how to play guitar, knit, or do lettering, they just told me figure out your slef lol one thay i will learn.

What about ambidextrous people

What about fiddler crabs?

Both my parents are left-handed, and my brother and I are right-handed.

In cricket, the left-hand bowlers are considered to have an X-factor as they have a different angle, and they cause problems for most batters. As a result, any good left-handed bowler is picked earlier than the others making the aforementioned interaction more favorable for them because you don't usually find left-handed bowlers in domestic circuits.

For anyone wondering Shaheen and Starc are prime examples of this today

I'm a lefty for writing, punching, kicking and shooting; but i play the bass (lol), guitar, drums, and also play hockey (goalie) as a righty. Later on I realized it makes more sense because you press the notes with the left hand on a guitar and you catch and use a lefthanded stick in hockey. Also I just can't play baseball, i NEED to throw and catch with my left hand. You can imagine the bullying as a kid everytime i took off my glove to throw the ball.
Also when I found a lefthanded shop I felt so VALIDATED. People laugh when you mention lefthanded scissors or even cups but oh well, you get used to being different.

Maybe it is a debunked myth...but I was surprised not to hear about the 'history' of the right handed hand shake. Something like...when two men/knights/warriors etc would meet, they would extend and grasp right hands/arms to effectively 'disarm' themselves for an introduction. A left handed person would be able to 'sneak/surprise' attack while their right hands were locked and thus created a suspicion and prejudice against left handed people. (See Sinister v. Dexterity).

I am a left handed person and it shows in the way I write and use my mouse on my left hand during gaming. Sadly, I was forced to use a right handed guitar because my guitar teacher told me it's better off for me to learn right-handed than left-handed. So far, it kinda helped me because I have a stronger grip on my left and it was easier for me to do bar chords.

Cats like to jab with their left paws when boxing

Excellent

I bowl right handed, but I can still usually score over 100 with my left hand and still can throw a hook with it decently accurately lol. But I suck with it with everything else besides specific things like steering, or clutch control on the motorcycle. I can’t throw or write for crap with my left, but my right handwriting sucks too just not nearly as badly
I used to fight and train, and I’ve knocked three people out one with a left hook, one a right hook, and the other was a right cross he stepped into. Idk if punching relates to this or not though.

I've always wondered if civilizations that read and write from right to left are more left-handed.

Something to be said for snowboards, think you got it, turn around

I was ambidextrous until I started school and noticed that writing with your left is a pain in the neck.
Since then I split duties so I do any heavy lifting with my left and anything that needs a fair amount of dexterity with my right.

Oddly red heads are mostly left handed i wonder why that could be

Aaaaand you still haven't answered the question

That lefties have an advantage sounds a little... sinister. ;) (Heraldry joke.)

I’m left handed, and my right had is dumb. While playing ball as a kid I had to catch the ball with my left hand, rip the glove off and throw with my left hand.
In 5th grad the lefties had to use a wire frame on their pencils , and must keep the frame on the table. This was to not have the horrid wrist hook. ( Which my aunt had) I ended up learning to write by turning my paper upside down. All this was difficult for my artwork , especially calligraphy, which I loved.

for using tools (writing, using a spoon, etc) im left handed, but for throwing something (a rock, a baseball) im right handed and to kick something (a ball or something else) im back to left