Handedness measures for the Human Connectome Project: Implications for data analysis.

Open data initiatives such as the UK Biobank and Human Connectome Project provide researchers with access to neuroimaging, genetic, and other data for large samples of left-and right-handed participants, allowing for more robust investigations of handedness than ever before. Handedness inventories are universal tools for assessing participant handedness in these large-scale neuroimaging contexts. These self-report measures are typically used to screen and recruit subjects, but they are also widely used as variables in statistical analyses of fMRI and other data.

Olduvai's oldest Oldowan.

Previously, Olduvai Bed I excavations revealed Oldowan assemblages <1.85 Ma, mainly in the eastern gorge. New western gorge excavations locate a much older ∼2.

Manual laterality and cognition through evolution: An archeological perspective.

To understand the evolution of lateralized motor biases and cognitive functions, we rely on archeological methods to give us a window onto the past. Currently, the overwhelming majority of prehistoric data on asymmetry and laterality concern only the hominin lineage, spanning the time period from the presumed evolutionary split with the other great apes around 6-8 million years ago until the present day. We present an overview of these data from paleontology and archeology.

Manual praxis in stone tool manufacture: implications for language evolution.

Alternative functions of the left-hemisphere dominant Broca's region have induced hypotheses regarding the evolutionary parallels between manual praxis and language in humans. Many recent studies on Broca's area reveal several assumptions about the cognitive mechanisms that underlie both functions, including: (1) an accurate, finely controlled body schema, (2) increasing syntactical abilities, particularly for goal-oriented actions, and (3) bilaterality and fronto-parietal connectivity. Although these characteristics are supported by experimental paradigms, many researchers have failed to acknowledge a major line of evidence for the evolutionary development of these traits: stone tools.