Introduction

Abstract

The primate hand is renowned for its versatility, both within the context of locomotion and particularly manipulation. Wood Jones and Napier credited this versatility to the primitiveness of the primate hand relative to many other mammals. This edited volume explores both the primitive and specialized aspects of primate hand morphology and function from anatomical, developmental, neurological, biomechanical, and evolutionary perspectives. It brings together the expertise of leading scholars in each of these research areas to provide a comprehensive review of our current understanding of the primate hand, ranging from wrist to the finger tips, from strepsirrhines to hominoids, and from the earliest fossil primates to the evolution of modern humans.

“There is evidently something extraordinarily primitive about the hand that has been preserved and passed on to Man; but like the primitive rotating forearm, this primitive, simple and unspecialized five-fingered

hand is full of possibilities.”(Wood Jones 1916: 20)